Today I will pick up with the first chapter of
Dennis Prager’s commentary, The
Rational Bible: Genesis- God, Creation, and Destruction.
In Chapter 1, he begins with the beginning, “In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).
He states that to some extent, this is the most
important verse in Scripture. I find his narrative to be dead-on. He writes, “First,
the verse posits a Creator of the universe. That means, among other things,
there is meaning to existence. If there is no Creator, there is no ultimate
purpose to existence, including of course, human existence. We humans can make
up a meaning because we are the one species that cannot live without meaning.
But the fact remains that we made it up.”
When the Bible was taught in schools and the
majority of people in America went to church, we did not see the violence and
chaos that we see, or live with, today. Why? I would argue that when we removed
God out of the picture, we lost our sense of purpose and identity (I would also
add accountability). When we have no solid foundation on which to base our
meaning, purpose, or accountability, we become a people devoid of conscience
and each seeks to make his own purpose, generally with selfish intent, and
impose his/her will on others. The perfect recipe for disaster.
Prager continues:
Of course, atheists
argue that believers in God made up God; therefore, God does not really exist.
But they don’t always apply this rule to the existence of what they acknowledge
they made up: meaning. If what we make up (God) doesn’t exist, what atheists
make up (meaning) doesn’t exist. If there is no God, we know there is no
ultimate meaning or purpose to life: that all existence – including, of course,
our own – is the result of random chance. But we do not know there is no
Creator. So, unlike those who know they make up meaning, neither we who believe
in God nor atheists know we made up God. On the contrary, there are very strong
arguments for a designer of the world, but there are no arguments for an
ultimate purpose to life if there is no God.
Man has always sought the meaning and purpose to
life. With the hopelessness that comes with not knowing God, meaning, and
purpose, one can only try to create for themselves some sense of being. For
some, it is to take what others have. For others, it is charity, but as good as
this is, it is for selfish reasons. Most of us gain a great satisfaction out of
helping others. At its heart, the motivation is to make us feel better. I’m not
saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but when we condemn those who take the
former approach, on what moral code do we make such condemnation? After all, we
are merely products of random chance and this life is all there is, why not live
it up and do what pleases us?
If we look at the world, we see chaos when man does
what he wills. Within nature, we see order and beauty. Of all I have read and
studied, I have never seen any belief system that demonstrates why this is,
other than the God of the Bible.
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