Me: How is your day going?
Prodigal: It’s hotter than the inside of an all-day tent revival.
Me: Well try to stay in the shade while I share with you today.
This is from C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity
I mentioned only the Materialist view and the Religious view. But to be complete I ought to mention the In-between view called Life-Force philosophy, or Creative Evolution, or Emergent Evolution. The wittiest expositions of it come in the works of Bernard Shaw, but the most profound ones in those of Bergson. People who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on this planet “evolved”from the lowest forms to Man were not due to chance but to the “striving” or “purposiveness” of a Life-Force. When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force them mean something with a mind or not. If they do, then “a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection”is really a God, and their view is thus identical with the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense in saying that something without a mind “strives” or has “purpose”? This seems to me fatal to their view. One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and one of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being a blind force, with no moral and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want,but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?
The trouble with that average view is that when you need healing, when you need help from evil in this world. When you are afraid your tame life-force is not going to help you. It is only Jesus that is going to help.
Psalm 100:3
Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
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