So... What is True?

Well, our discussion moves to the next course. What is True? Here's the question. Here's the thing that people have been talking about since people realized that there was such a thing as truth.

Here you go. It is true that there is a God. It is also true that we all feel some kind of separation from that God. I don't care about finding some astounding proofs to get you to believe these two things through some incredible bit of philosophical logic. I just assume that you feel them both to be true. I think it is "true" that we all recognize these two things to be true. Just don't think about the Christian God when I make these claims, and I think you'll probably agree. At least, I've never talked to anyone who disagreed. I don't care if you call yourself an athiest, agnostic, jew, muslim, taoist or Christian, you think it is true that there is a God, and you are separated from that God.

At any rate, we have the first two things that are true.

1. There is a God.
2. We are separated from Him.

Now there are some truths in between these that we'll leave out through the rest of this for simplicity, but I want you to be aware of them. They go like this.

1. There is a God.
1a. That God made everything.
1b. That God loves everything he made.
1c. That God made us with a free will
2a. We used that free will to separate ourselves from Him.
Therefore
2b. We are separated from Him.

I still don't think anyone would honestly disagree with these truths. I'm sure I'm being naieve.

This leads us to the third truth: We need/want to get back together with Him. Everyone who recognizes the gap between themselves and God, has the desire to bridge that gap. The problem is, we can't. No matter how hard we try, we will never be holy enough, dedicated enough, or disciplined enough to come back to Him on our own. I think this is something everyone has felt in their own lives as well. If you haven't let me know.

So we have the first five things that are true.

1. There is a God.
2. We are separated from Him.
3. We want to come back to Him.
4. We can't get back to Him on our own.

This is the one where we might begin to disagree. That's why I believe the Bible exists. In a way, it's a big long story proving that we can't get back to God on our own. I'll give you the quick-and-dirty.

The Bible begins with what we want. Man and God together. That's what we really hunger for. Then, there's the fall. A fancy word that says we were separated from God. (Adam, garden of Eden, Snake, apple...) After the fall, God tries just straight up ignoring the separation, and letting us exist separate from Him. That doesn't work. We start going crazy, doing our own thing, and in our sin and debauchery nearly annihilate ourselves. And that makes Him sad. (Everything that happened before the flood.) Then God says, alright, there are bad people and good people. What if we just got rid of the bad people, and left the good people? Then everything should be okay. So, the flood. God wipes out every bad guy in the world. (Isn't that what we want Him to do sometimes even now?) Well, the result is a small group of people that make it through, and the Earth is now left with only good people. Well, in less than a few years, the good people do bad, and everything goes to pot again. So, God says, I'll bring up a group of people who will do my work, and they'll follow a system of laws, and through that system of laws they'll come to deserve fellowship with me. (Israel.) This is, again, what many of us want. Pretty much every one of us wants to find a way to God on our own. We want to do something that proves us worthy to be back together with him. Doesn't work. We try and try and try, and He forgives and lets us try again and again and again, but no luck. We keep wandering away. We just plain old can't be good enough. It's not possible, He tried it.

Now, let's look at how God perceives this whole thing. Because there is a God, it must be the case that He made everything. It is precisely because He made us that He loves us. (Remember this is truth 1a... am I loosing you?)

On to the next things that are true. It is true that God loves us and wants us to get back together with Him. (Truth Six) And, it is true that God knows that we can't get back together with Him on our own. (Truth Seven.) So where are we?

1. There is a God.
2. We are separated from Him.
3. We want to come back to Him.
4. We can't get back to Him on our own.
5. God wants us to get back together with Him.
6. God knows we can't get back to Him on our own.

So, God decides that because we can't do anything to come back to Him, he decides to step in. He incarnates Himself on the Earth and through the system of rules that He has set in place, reconciles us to Him. (The system of rules said from the very beginning that the penalty for sin would be death. "Don't eat the fruit Adam or you'll die." Because the penalty is death, He has to die.)

So, God comes to earth, sacrifices Himself for our sins, and we are allowed to come back to Him. Here's where some of those other truths come into play. We can't get back to God on our own, so He died in order to bring us back. But that doesn't negate truth 1c. (God made us with a free will) Because we still have a free will, we have to choose to come back to God. Because the only way back to God is through the sacrifice He chose to make, we have to believe that He did it. If we believe that He really did it, then we can lean on that belief to find ourselves back with Him. So, there you have it. What is true? It is true that:

1. There is a God.
2. We are separated from Him.
3. We want to come back to Him.
4. We can't get back to Him on our own.
5. God wants us to get back together with Him.
6. God knows we can't get back to Him on our own.
Therefore
7. God incarnated Himself on Earth and died in order for us to be able to get back together with Him.
8. If we believe that He really did that, we can rectify our separation from Him.

There you go. Truth. More thoughts in the next post.