Essays

Once Superheroes: Part II

By Johnny Beloved ⋅ September 29, 2007 ⋅  forward to friend ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

I have a friend who is agnostic in a sense, surmising that yes, there is a God; but disbelieving that this God is the Christian God. Despite having been raised as a Christian, his mind concludes that the story of Jesus is a very nice story, but not necessary. He is (my friend) absolutely sure that Jesus lived, that he was an extraordinary man, but not a God. No, the resurrection is nothing more than a story certain friends told each other to keep the memory of an unparalleled man alive by capitalizing on a myth already present in Jewish culture (the Messiah).

But the fact remains that most Christians (and nonbelievers as well) don’t fully grasp why stories like the Garden of Eden and the Resurrection are necessary. Non-Christians think the Bible is just mostly little fables that Jewish men and women told their kids at bedtime to impress morality into their young molding minds. Many Christians, (especially the ones converted from childhood), blindly accept these stories without a second thought. “This is God’s Word,” they’ll tell you, like it’s the end of the matter. But what they fail to realize is that it’s only the end of the matter in their own minds, not in the minds of others. Which presents a conundrum for a lot of believers (like myself) that just have to make some frigging sense out of simple stories presented in the Bible. If it’s all we’re left with, then so be it. But don’t say that I must accept what is written like there is nothing more to be said.

On Allegory

Whether you’re of the opinion that stories from the Bible are allegorical or literal, it’s not hard to admit that Christians seem to spend more time arguing who is right rather than understanding (or trying to understand) what it truly means to be a “follower of Christ.” Think about it. Why is the story of Christ necessary? Because of one single infraction involving a piece of fruit? Is the story of Adam and Eve truly a story about obedience? Is it a story about free will? Is it, like the story of Lucifer, a story ultimately about pride? Let’s think on this.

The game of chess is played with great passion by enthusiasts everywhere. Chess is used as a metaphor for life, like baseball, like war. This game depends on rigidity. You are constrained by the moves of certain pieces and the strategies employed as a result of your opponent’s moves. And therein lies the brilliance of chess. The freedom of it. We relate to the game because we relate to life. But think for a moment and wonder. What if we could make any move we wanted with whatever piece we wanted? What if we could instantly take the king in a single swoop, because such a move was simply possible? The game, in that moment, would cease to be a pursuit of skill. Hell, it would even cease to be fun. No move would have great importance. Strategy would cease to exist. The game itself would become pointless.

What if God had, by some miracle within the grasp of his power, corrected that first sin? All is well again. But herein lies the dilemma. God, in his infinite wisdom, wouldn’t have corrected the first sin unless he was willing to correct the second sin, and then the third sin, and then the fourth, fifth, and ad infinitum. Our choices would therefore be rendered absolutely inane. The very foundation of the great human experiment (free will) would be corrupted, and what had started as something beautifully meaningful would be chipped apart to shards of something increasingly insubstantial by miracles of sin reversal performed by God’s own hand.

Let me sum up the previous three paragraphs in one word for you, “Lame.”

So Why Christ Then?

Adam and Eve

What separates Christianity from anything else? We have so many supposed ways to God, but none of them offer an explanation for the ache in the pit of our stomachs. No other religion can tell us why God doesn’t heal amputees, cure the cancer stricken and bring peace on the earth. Christianity offers a very clear reason. We’re fallen human beings.

Maybe you don’t believe in God. Maybe you think God should fix everything if such a thing truly exists. And if I’m speaking to you, I would have to say that you understand nothing about human nature. We are innately selfish, self-preserving, narcissistic creatures. When push comes to shove, we don’t sacrifice ourselves. We sacrifice the poor fool next to us. Call it evolution. Call it survival of the fittest. What you’re observing is merely pride. The time has come for one of us to die, and we’re both pointing the finger at someone else.

God doesn’t heal amputees because he doesn’t involve himself in the perpetuation nor the hinderence of our free will. We made a choice, at some point in time, to abandon God for ourselves. And though it wasn’t the choice God would have made for us, we still made it and therefore have to live with the consequences.

Christ is necessary for one reason and one reason only. It was to provide us with a choice.

Neo

I love the Matrix. It was a fascinating movie. In many ways, a representation of our current state of affairs. The movie in essence, is about choice. Humanity, through the exercise of its free will, made a decision to alienate God. We said we could handle things on our own (the details of this will only get more fascinating in later posts), and that was that. In all fairness, we should have been left to rot.

The One

But God, knowing that free will depended on the ability to choose, foretasted the future. Sooner or later mankind would have become aware of the problem, realizing that if a miracle had occurred and corrected our sin, the lack of any miracle whatsoever would have left us hopeless in our sin. The game isn’t fair when you know that no matter what you do, the consequences will remain the same. Morality, as a result, would have no meaning. And we could rape, maim and kill to our evil heart’s content knowing that no matter what we did, the result would not change. If we’re punished the same for a single lie as a thousand gruesome murders, then what? C’est la vie.

So without Christ, we have two polar opposites. On one side, we have God correcting all of our mistakes and rendering our life meaningless. On the other side, we have God abandoning us to our choices, also rendering our life meaningless. In the former scenario, we live in a bubble. In the latter, a black hole.

Jesus Christ is the very definition of fairness. When Jesus said that “I am the way, the truth and the life,” he wasn’t joking around. Jesus is the reason we still have free will. There are still consequences to be had. There are risks to be taken. Choices to be made. Even know, a great debate is being waged by Christians and Atheists alike over the validity of one choice over the other. Atheists would have you believe that the belief in a ridiculous concept like “god” is childish and delusional. This is all we have and the only difference you can make is in the here and now.

But good writers know that with every story, even the story of humanity, there must be a risk taken. There has to be the possibility at some point in the book where the conflict can affect both a wonderful or horrible ending. Atheists have no imagination. No creativity. Look at the world around you. It’s full of imagination. It’s full of creativity and wonder and excitement. It’s this way because everything has meaning. Your choices have meaning. Your faith has meaning. And even when the world looks empty and pointless and merely a shadow of its former self, remember that the story still has to come to an end. There is a lot of living between now and then.

In the meantime, we have to realize what gives balance to the world around us. Christianity and the meaning behind it offers the only viable explanation of why there is so much hurt in the world. Why there is war and confusion and hatred and pain.

God isn’t going to make us love him. He can’t. He’s bound by the very words he spoke from his mouth. It’s called a promise and if not in the physical world, something like a promise still holds weight in the spiritual world. He promised to let us choose. To always let us choose. And with every moment, we are given a choice. When you think about it, it’s the way a story is written. It keeps us guessing until the very end. No other faith can offer you a better story, a better meaning for your life.

This is not the end. No, we’re just getting started.