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<\/a><\/p>\nI\u2019m not asking what matters to you<\/em> or to me<\/em> personally, subjectively, in our own temporal lives? My question has to do with the overall scheme of things\u2014reality itself<\/em>. What matters more than anything else\u2014period? That includes us, but is not limited to individuals or even groups of people. What I am asking is hard for some people to understand. I get that. But please try to understand what I am asking here. That will require you to rise above yourself in a kind of act of self-transcendence to \u201cview\u201d the whole of reality that includes everything that is.<\/p>\n What matters most? To all and everyone and everything? I think if you ponder this question you will have to agree that what matters most is that there is meaning<\/em> and I will dare to say that merely subjective meaning or \u201cmeaning\u201d created by creatures is not really meaning in the sense that it must be<\/em>.<\/p>\n Put another way, if life itself, if the universe, if being has no objective meaning, then anything is permitted and the only consistent way to live is for pleasure (whatever that is for each person). If there is no objective, universal, objective meaning \u201cout there\u201d and \u201cin here\u201d (within each person\u2019s life drawn from the \u201cout there\u201d meaning), then, whatever a person does is ultimately okay. Society may disagree, but society\u2019s judgment about people\u2019s behaviors are really meaningless. So long as a person can get away with whatever he or she decides to do and finds \u201cmeaning\u201d in that, he or she is free to do it with impunity.<\/p>\n Society, culture, government may condemn his or her decisions and actions, but ultimately that is only a culturally conditioned judgment with no ultimate bearing.<\/p>\n Let me illustrate. Most of us now look back on actions of people in the past and condemn them\u2014even when those actions (e.g., slavery) were perfectly acceptable socially and culturally and legal. We condemn them anyway. Why? Were they right then but wrong now? By \u201cthey\u201d I mean those actions in the past. Where they right then, when they happened, when they were being done, but somehow made wrong (for those in the past) now? I\u2019m not asking whether slavery is now recognized as wrong for now. I\u2019m asking if we now think that it was wrong then\u2014in the past\u2014even though hardly anyone then<\/em> thought so (except slavery\u2019s victims)?<\/p>\n If they were wrong then, as our condemnations of slave owners of the past would indicate, what made them wrong when the social order judged them right? Read on past the italics, please\u2026.<\/p>\n *Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own (or those of the guest writer); I do not speak for any other person, group or organization; nor do I imply that the opinions expressed here reflect those of any other person, group or organization unless I say so specifically. Before commenting read the entire post and the \u201cNote to commenters\u201d at its end.*<\/em><\/p>\n Now to my main point\u2026. If there is no God or anything like God, an eternal being, creator of all except himself\/itself\/herself, who is a moral being, then \u201cmeaning\u201d as I mean it (and as you should also mean it) is impossible. In that case, \u201cmeaning\u201d truly becomes relative, subjective (even if in relation to a large group of people who simply happen to agree), and always changeable.<\/p>\n This is one point<\/em> where philosopher Immanuel Kant and I agree entirely. We disagree about the details. I think Kant was probably a deist of some kind, but we agree that meaning and morality depend on the existence of God as understood through \u201cethical monotheism.\u201d<\/p>\n Now I can already anticipate some objections because I\u2019ve heard and read them before, but they are simply wrong. One objection is that we human beings can create meaning and we do that and it\u2019s enough. My late friend Paul Kurtz, perhaps the leading secular humanist of the late 20th<\/sup> century, argued in In Defense of Secular Humanism<\/em>. It isn\u2019t enough and anyone should be able to see that if<\/em> they rise above humanity as it is now and view the long history of humanity and consider right and wrong<\/em> in the past. And they should be able to see its wrongness if they contemplate how shifting and changing humanity\u2019s concepts of meaning and right and wrong are.<\/p>\n I once invited the president of a state Humanist Association to speak to my Christian Apologetics class. We read Kurtz\u2019s book (mentioned above) first. Then we spent at least an hour in dialogue with the man. At the end of the conversation I asked him what he would say to someone who argued that \u201cDo what you will shall be the whole of the law\u201d (Aleister Crowley). His only response was that he would consider such a person a \u201cmoral imbecile.\u201d I asked why and he had no response.<\/p>\n Now, I have a second answer that is really (for me) the \u201cother side\u201d of the first answer to what matters most. That God exists is the one side; the other side is that God is truly good in some meaningful way other than<\/em> \u201cWhatever God does is good just because God does it.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, very few believers in God will come right out and say that, but it is what I detect must be going on in their minds when they defend as \u201cgood\u201d God\u2019s alleged decision to create people for eternal torment in hell (for his glory). One leading Calvinist theologian argued that God saves as many people as his nature allows. (If you question my references, read Against Calvinism<\/em> where I name and document everything I say here about specific Calvinist theologians.) One can only exclaim What?<\/em> Then God is not the omnipotent and free God Calvinism says in its doctrine of God\u2019s sovereignty and providence. And yet, that Calvinist theologian\u2019s explanation is the only possible one. But it is self-referentially absurd within the Calvinist system in which God is absolutely free and almighty<\/em>.<\/p>\n Within the Calvinist theological system (and here I speak only of so-called \u201cconsistent Calvinists\u201d of the \u201cTULIP\u201d variety who are concerned to think and communicate coherently and consistently) \u201cGod is good\u201d is uninformative<\/em>. It does not inform us of anything about God because there is no meaning of \u201cgood\u201d consistent with creating human beings only to torture them eternally. Within the Calvinist system, \u201cGod is good\u201d is simply a tautology and like all tautologies it is not informative. The usual defense is something like \u201cWhatever God does is good just because God does it\u201d which is an expression of voluntarism<\/em> which is an expression of nominalism<\/em>. But that and these empty \u201cgood\u201d of any real meaning\u2014when applied to God. There is then no connection between \u201cgood\u201d in God and \u201cgood\u201d for us\u2014even as God commands us to be good.<\/p>\n My conclusion is that both<\/em> atheism and<\/em> Calvinism rob reality of what is most important\u2014that there is real meaning<\/em> in the universe and<\/em> that meaning is good news<\/em>. See what I just did? I added something to what I said previously. It\u2019s not enough that reality be meaningful<\/em>; reality\u2019s meaning must be good news<\/em>\u2014ultimately and in the overall scheme of things (eschatologically).<\/p>\n Calvinism pretends that it is good news, but it turns out that it is only good news for some<\/em> and not for all. That is, unless a person is willing to bite the bullet and admit that even those predestined by God to eternal torment in hell \u201cget to\u201d contribute to the summum bonum, the glory of God, by suffering in the flames of hell for eternity<\/em>. But even then, it\u2019s not really good news because the God who is the ground of all real meaning is a moral monster<\/em>\u2014not that different from Satan or<\/em> Stephen King\u2019s ending to his novel Revival<\/em>. (Read it to see what I mean\u2014if you dare. It will keep you awake at night unless you really believe that God is good and will win over all evil in the end!)<\/p>\n Calvinists typically respond to all this by arguing that God is good because all people deserve<\/em> hell but God mercifully and graciously chooses some to rescue from their deserved fate and brings them into eternal bliss. However, this doesn\u2019t work because given the typical Calvinist doctrine of God\u2019s power and providence<\/em> (sovereignty) he could<\/em> save everyone. Then, when that is pointed out to the Calvinist he (or she) typically responds that hell is necessary for the greater glory of God (which is the summum bonum) because God\u2019s attribute of justice would not be revealed, manifested, without it. O really? What about the cross of Jesus Christ? Was that not, I ask, a sufficient manifestation of God\u2019s justice\u2014within a conservative evangelical Protestant system of theology? The typical Calvinist answer robs the cross of its glory as a full and complete, unlimited manifestation of God\u2019s attribute of justice.<\/p>\n My conclusion (here but more fully expressed and explained in Against Calvinism<\/em>) is that both atheism and Calvinism undermine and miss what is most important<\/em>\u2014that this universe, however it may \u201clook\u201d at any given time, is meaningful in an objective, absolute sense and in a good way.<\/p>\n In that sense, Calvinism and atheism are two sides of one coin. Both undermine basic trust<\/em> in the meaningfulness and goodness of life and reality.<\/p>\n I rest my case for now. For more, read Against Calvinism<\/em>. If you don\u2019t, then all I really have to say to you is, again, read Against Calvinism<\/em>. If you do and still prefer to believe in Calvinism, then I can only consider you not reasonable\u2014at least about this subject.<\/p>\n *Note to commenters:<\/em> This blog is not a discussion board; please respond with a question or comment only to me. If you do not share my evangelical Christian perspective (very broadly defined), feel free to ask a question for clarification, but know that this is not a space for debating incommensurate perspectives\/worldviews. In any case, know that there is no guarantee that your question or comment will be posted by the moderator or answered by the writer. If you hope for your question or comment to appear here and be answered or responded to, make sure it is civil, respectful, and \u201con topic.\u201d Do not comment if you have not read the entire post and do not misrepresent what it says. Keep any comment (including questions) to minimal length; do not post essays, sermons or testimonies here. Do not post links to internet sites here. This is a space for expressions of the blogger\u2019s (or guest writers\u2019) opinions and constructive dialogue among evangelical Christians (very broadly defined).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What Matters More Than Anything Else at All, Whatsoever? I\u2019m not asking what matters to you or to me personally, subjectively, in our own temporal lives? My question has to do with the overall scheme of things\u2014reality itself. What matters more than anything else\u2014period? That includes us, but is not limited to individuals or even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n