{"id":276,"date":"2017-01-09T08:30:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-09T16:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/?p=276"},"modified":"2017-01-05T14:32:23","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T22:32:23","slug":"god-designed-human-machine-run-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/randyalcorn\/2017\/01\/god-designed-human-machine-run-2\/","title":{"rendered":"God Designed the Human Machine to Run on Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"car-engine-large\"<\/p>\n

In Mere Christianity<\/em>, C. S. Lewis wrote:<\/p>\n

What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could \u201cbe like gods\u201d\u2014could set up on their own as if they had created themselves\u2014be their own masters\u2014invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history\u2014money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery\u2014the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.[i]<\/sup><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Every sin we commit, every shortcoming we display is an attempt to be happy through a God-substitute. Lewis, who spent much of his life trying to find happiness outside God, finally realized he\u2019d been deceiving himself. He wasn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not only unbelievers who try to find happiness outside God. Every time believers are tempted to sin, we\u2019re contemplating whether greater happiness can be found without God. If we imagine it can, we\u2019ll succumb to the temptation.<\/p>\n

Lewis continued his argument:<\/p>\n

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.[ii]<\/sup><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lewis also said, \u201cThere is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. . . . It is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.\u201d[iii]<\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

We\u2019re free to be unhappy. We\u2019re free to search for happiness where it can\u2019t be found. What we\u2019re not free to do is reinvent God, the universe, or ourselves so that what isn\u2019t from God will bring us happiness.<\/p>\n

Excerpted from Randy\u2019s book <\/em>Happiness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

[i] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity <\/em>(New York: HarperCollins, 2001), book 2, chapter 3, \u201cThe Shocking Alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[ii] Ibid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[iii] Ibid.<\/p>\n

Photo: Unsplash<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote: What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could \u201cbe like gods\u201d\u2014could set up on their own as if they had created themselves\u2014be their own masters\u2014invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. 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