The Number One Quest of our time: What does it mean to be human?

The Story changed

As I have specified in previous posts, from the early 18th Century to the late 19th Century the Story of Western Culture radically changed from ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ to ‘In the beginning Nothing’. If we have come from Nothing, and are eventually going back to Nothing, then by definition and implication….we must BE Nothing. But we all know that’s not true don’t we? But that is the lie we have been indoctrinated by for over three hundred years.

Reason replaced Revelation.

From the early 18th Century ‘Enlightenment’ man became the measure of all things (to quote the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras). Reason replaced Revelation, meaning human reason replaced the Creator God’s Revelation in Creation, Holy Scripture and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Humanism interprets Reality.

Picture a small Swiss mountain village, and a huge Avalanche of snow is heading for the village at breakneck speed threatening to destroy the village. The Avalanche represents Humanism, Evolution, Atheism and a whole variety of other ‘isms’ centred in the total autonomy of human reason. The village represents the Christian Church which responds in two ways.

One, it embraces the Avalanche of Humanism and other isms. The other takes to the hills to separate from the onslaught of man made ideologies. In other words, fundamentalism ran for the hills and liberalism deeply assimilated the Avalanche of ideologies. That was at the beginning of the 20th Century.

When Darwin, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche especially, declared that ‘God is Dead’, the ancient gods of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome rose again. But in particular Babylonian, as the Book of Revelation which reveals the destiny of humanity emphasises Babylon which is rooted in Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel.

Romans chapter 1- Human Culture without the Creator.

As Romans 1v25 in particular succinctly encapsulates the reality of the deep orientation of all human beings. 'They EXCHANGED the truth of God for the LIE and WORSHIPPED the creature rather than the Creator’. This means there is NOTHING NEUTRAL in ALL Creation. Human beings either worship the One True Personal Infinite Eternal Triune Creator God or they worship the creature or something from within creation.

As Augustine said ‘You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You’. At the heart of the problem is the problem of the human heart….it is intrinsically restless, because we were made by God and for God.

Culture= Worship

The word ‘Culture’ from the Latin means ‘Cultus’ or worship. Human Culture then is a form of ‘Religion Externalised’ even if it is fundamentally Atheistic, for Atheism is basically humans evolving into a state of being deified. Hence Scientism and Technocracy seek to merge the Digital with the Biological. The Universe has an Intelligent Designer behind it called Jesus Christ, but an unseen power elite are pursuing Artificial Intelligence as the devils’ counterfeit ‘eschaton’ (End Game).

Western Culture then is lost in its own Babylonian Neo Pagan Captivity. Idolatry in a nutshell. For example Sport today it could be argued is the opiate of the masses to quote an atheistic Jew called Karl Marx (referring to religion). Or money, or celebrities, or the family, or work, or science, or technology, mobile phones and on and on it goes.

From the Eternal Creator God…..to Gadgets- speaks of the journey the West has travelled.

We BECOME what we worship.Idolatry subverts our true identity as Image bearers of the personal infinite Triune Creator God. We become what we worship. God is a Relational, Social, Communal, Moral, Creative Being and so are we. Obviously we do not possess God’s Transcendent attributes, we are not Omniscient, Omnipresent, All Knowing or All Powerful. You don’t need me to tell you that!

But ‘Be Fruitful and Multiply, Subdue and Have Dominion’ is the human calling and mandate from our Creator. Dominion after Eden became about exploiting Creation, and violence and totalitarian empires…racial supremacy, ethnic cleansing, etc.

Welcome to Babylon

However the Babylonian Neo Pagan captivity that we are in based on Idolatry explains also why the West is now politically moving in a direction toward Totalitarianism. This is where the State over-reaches its creational jurisdiction (Romans 13v1-7 in context of chapter 12v9) and assumes control over all of life. The State itself becomes an idol, a tyrannical dictatorial dehumanising idol. Dominion meant to nurture, cultivate, care for God’s creation as faithful stewards to Develop the Garden into a God glorifying culture.

From the Enlightenment (early 18th century to late 19th century) the so called ‘Age of Reason’ is where the Story radically changed in Western Culture as noted above, from ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ to ‘In the beginning Nothing’….. When Western Culture in the Post Enlightenment period, in particular Darwin, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche declared that ‘God is Dead’….the ancient gods of Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome rose again….

As Martin Luther said ‘Where the battle rages most fierce, at that point in the battle is where the loyalty of the soldier is proven’. He also said that if God’s people fail there at that precise point where the battle rages most fierce, we fail at every other point. So here we are in the 21st Century still trying to work out…What it means to be human, but based on what exactly? Obviously Western ‘leaders’ do not have the beginnings of a clue, they have been aiding and abetting one of the most horrific Genocides in modern history. After all the Western empire created Israel for the Greater Israel project.

There is an inseparable connection between the ‘Death of God and the Death of Truth and what it means to be human…..