“Where are you?” is perhaps one of the most penetrating questions found in the entire Bible (Gen.3:9). The passage shows two different entities: the Questioner Who is unchanging, eternal, all-powerful, and of infinite knowledge, and the subject being questioned is forever changing, temporal, and of limited power and knowledge. The question was asked at a great transitional point in the life of humankind in which all of creation became out of step with its divine purpose and original intent. God’s intention in creating man was so that man would live in perfect peace and harmony with his Creator. It was a relationship in which love was expressed from both sides as an act of free will. To test the stability of man’s devotion, a tree was placed in the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The serpent whispered his subtle deceit in the ears of Eve, “Yeah, hath God said”? It was a rhetorical question intended to bring reproach and doubt against the Word of God. And it was intended to cause man to act independently from his Creator. It was only after Eve saw that the “tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat” (Gen 3:6).
Our ever-changing western culture is advancing in human knowledge at an all-time high. Buckminster Fuller, a mid-20th century systems theorist, estimated that human knowledge doubled every century prior to 1900. By World War 2 it doubled every 25 years. Today, it doubles nearly every year. And with the advancing of technology, it could soon double every 12 hours!
You would think that with all this “human advancement” most, if not all, of our problems would be solved. But it seems the opposite is true. In the midst of all this growing knowledge, we would do well to ask ourselves “Where are we?” on the map of reality. Where are we and what is our disposition in relation to Ultimate Reality? Who gets to define who or what Ultimate Reality actually is? And who or what gets to set the moral standards of such reality? Culture, with all its scientific advancements, would seem to be the deciding factor, a guidepost, to determine “good” and “evil”. And so it would seem that where we are dispositionally to Ultimate Reality would be determined by where we are in relation to culture. But what standard determines whether or not culture itself is good or evil? To know for certain where we are in all of this we need some kind of guide to lead us into Truth and reality.
Thinkers such as Plato and his student Aristotle, as pictured above in Raphael’s The School of Athens, have attempted to answer tough questions as these. Plato (left), extending his hand upwards, demonstrates that ultimate truth is found beyond the material world in the form of ideas (“Forms”); this world is only a shadow of the real, but not the real itself. Aristotle (right), pointing downwards, demonstrates that ultimate truth is found in the empirical examination of the material world; truth is known through the senses. Plato reasons from the universal to the particulars (Inductive reasoning); Aristotle reasons from the particulars to the universal (Deductive reasoning). Both Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical, political, and ethical ideas are major building blocks that helped structure western civilization. But have those contributions helped navigate through the floodwaters of the broken system of human knowledge? Or have they merely added to the rising tides of confusion and epistemological chaos? No matter what the contribution was, there is at least one major flaw of human knowledge that is inferred from The School of Athens. And that is found in what Plato and Aristotle were not doing! More on that later.
By the 1st century A.D., Athens had lost its political independence to Rome. Yet it held strong to its cultural identity in the arts, religion, philosophy, and literature with the Areopagus serving as the highest court for such matters. It was an extremely religious city, so much so that many statues and altars were built in honor of their Greek gods. And just as in the days of old, when Plato and Aristotle taught in the city, the 1st century Athenians demonstrated their hunger for truth and reality through their philosophical endeavors and worship of stone altars, images, and man-made objects. In spite of the many centuries that have passed, the United States of America (being an outgrowth of the western civilization founded in Athens) also has many similarities to its Greek roots. We may not be worshipping the gods of Athena, Apollo, or Zeus. But in our 21st-century western culture, we have placed our trust and hopes in man-made idols of human knowledge and wisdom all the same. And much like those of Athens, we have placed our security and confidence in the works of our own hands and the ideas of our own finite minds, completely independent from the true and living God! It was to this culture that the apostle Paul spoke his message to:
16 “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.18 Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.19 And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?20 For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.33 So Paul departed from among them.34 Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them” (Acts 17:16-34).
It isn’t that those of us in western civilization do not worship; we do! Our heart’s natural propensity is to worship that which we find our identity in, which oftentimes is the very works of our own hands: man-made images, and ideas, formed and fashioned in our own image and likeness. Such idols and ideas, rooted in mere culture, become the standard and touchstone of Ultimate Reality to which we ignorantly worship. However, culture is neither the ultimate cause nor the origin of itself. Someone outside of culture is responsible for the creation of its life. This eternal Someone is the origin of all life and has set the bounds of culture’s habitation so that all people everywhere may search and seek after the Lord since He is not far from every one of us. The created order is not the Lord. But the Lord is revealing Himself thought-out all of creation (Psalms 19), so that we may seek out and find Him.
In the famous painting by Raphael, The School of Athens, there are several things to note. First, this painting is only one of four by Raphael between 1508 and 1511 in the Stanza della Segnatura representing the four branches of human knowledge: theology, philosophy, law, and poetry. Directly across The School of Athens is The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (pictured below). The School of Athens represents philosophy; The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament represents theology. Law and poetry are represented on the other two walls of the room. And contrary to the worldview of most cultures today, these four are not always mutually exclusive.
However, the main flaw of most cultures today is the same flaw displayed in Plato and Aristotle in The School of Athens. It isn’t that their philosophies are opposed to theology, though some chaff did exist among the wheat. Plato and Aristotle stand representing their philosophies on one side of the wall. On the other side of the wall is the risen “Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2-3). The flaw is that much like culture today, Plato, Aristotle, and those in the days of the apostle Paul pursued the acquisition of knowledge, yet did not have their gaze cast upon the One Who gives meaning to all knowledge and virtue. They beheld not the glory of the Lord but beheld the glory of their own works. Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God summed up in One divine Person (1 Corinthians 1:24). For so many millennia man has striven to gain knowledge apart from dependence on Christ. Yet Paul, even after visiting the great philosophers of Athens, noted how the Greeks seek after wisdom, yet “the world by wisdom knew not God” (1Cor. 1:21).
From the time of your birth to the time your body goes into the grave, there will be two unavoidable choices to make: the world’s wisdom, and the wisdom of God. Will you be part of the School of Athens who set their gaze to behold the works of their own hands, or will you be part of the School of Christ who set their gaze to behold the glory of the Lord? What is the cross of Christ to you? Is it foolishness? Or is it the power and wisdom of God? There is no third alternative!
What God has done at the cross in the Person of Jesus Christ is to restore you back to your divine purpose and original intent. In Jesus Christ, God has paid the sin debt that you were held captive to. Life apart from the cross of Christ is a life of misdirected worship. Such a life will end in unrest, unfulfillment, and eternal damnation. You will constantly find your identity in things that were never your true purpose. But a life so identified in the cross of Christ is a life of correctly aimed worship where you find true rest, fulfillment, and eternal righteousness with the Father of all creation.
There are two choices before you: the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. To know Christ is to know Truth (Jn 14:6) and to know Truth is to be truly free (Jn. 8:32).
Where are you?
In the pages that follow, there are seven theological/philosophical articles: