Conclusion

There are those who believe it is impossible to know the truth.  The irony of such a statement is that they believe that it is true.  Everyone believes in something, and everyone ought to believe that their beliefs are true.  How, then, can we know the truth?  If I disagree with a Marxist but we both think our beliefs are true, who is right?  We cannot know that.  That is not to say that we cannot know the truth: the truth is knowable, it is simply impossible to know which belief system is true.

I believe that one day I will die and will stand before the God Who created me and give an account for all of my actions.  A friend of mine who is an atheist believes that one day he will die and will be dead.  We cannot know which of us is right until we die.  That is the life of faith.  A worldview is nothing more than looking at the world and choosing what makes sense, analyzing the evidence and honestly choosing what seems true, then living your life with the assumption that what you believe is true, is true.

I believe that my beliefs are true.  Do you?

History

There are two different general perspectives in terms of history.  One is a cyclical perspective, in which the same events happen time and again, using new players on a new stage each time around.  Such a perspective is displayed in the Matrix series of movies by the Wachowski brothers.  This view, even as it looks at the past as a repetition, offers no hope for the future, for it simply means that all the same death, destruction, and despair will be repeated infinitely in a great circle that can never be escaped.

Therefore, cyclical historicism must be rejected in favor of a linear view, a view in which history has a definite starting point, from which it moves to a definite ending.  This linear perspective is in line with a biblical worldview, for the Bible itself repeatedly uses phrases such as “in the beginning” and “the end is near.”  Such phrases would not be used did God not desire us to believe in a single story arc that begins with creation and concludes with heaven.  Even within the linear camp, however, there are many different beliefs about man’s purpose and history’s ultimate meaning.  Which one is correct?

Man’s purpose is to be a reflection of God’s nature and a bearer of His glory throughout the world.  It was for this reason that God created us and it is for this reason that we should live our entire lives in a manner that is pleasing to God.  This story of humanity obviously has a past, however.  In a sense, there is a definite elephant in the room: if God intends humanity to display His glory, why do humans do evil?  The answer is that history is not summed up as a straight line connecting creation and heaven.  There were several major events that have occurred and will occur between those two.  Rather than as a single parabola, history should be viewed as moving along the way a stone does when skipped across a pond.  This paper will look at each of the points where the stone that is history touches the water.

History began at the point of creation.  The Bible tells us that God spoke and the earth came into being.  Everything that was and is, spoken from His mouth.  Significantly, the one exception to this is man.  When God created man, He did not speak him into being.  Instead, He shaped him with His hands and breathed life into his lungs.  God was intimately involved in the creation of mankind, which means that He has a special plan for us, one which He reveals in the first chapter of Genesis when He says: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Something went wrong along the way, however.  History flew for a time before it touched the water again, at what is known as the fall.  Humanity was deceived by God’s enemy, the Devil, into rebelling against God and seeking to set themselves in His place.  Because of their rebellion, God banished them from paradise and cursed them to pain, hardship, and death.

From this time forward, humanity was at war with God.  Millennia passed as man constantly fought against God’s rule and sought to overthrow Him in every way imaginable.  God called for Himself a people to represent Him on earth, but like Adam and Eve, they rebelled against Him time and again, serving other gods and violating His commandments.  This went on until the stone once more touched the water, at the most significant moment in human history.  A man, named Jesus Christ, was born to a virgin, named Mary.  But this was no ordinary man, as His miraculous birth testifies.  He was God in human flesh, come to bear for humanity their punishment of death.  He allowed His creation to beat Him, humiliate Him, and publicly execute Him while He took their sins on Himself in order to save them.

This Jesus is not an imaginary figure.  There is not a historian alive, even among those who are not Christians, who truly believe He did not live.  The historical evidence for His life and His death go far beyond Christian teaching into the writings of a number of non-Christian historians of the day.  As for His resurrection from the dead, His followers were willing to die rather than deny their testimony of its truth.  A group of nobodies from nowhere were willing to defy the greatest power of the day—the Roman Empire—rather than turn aside from their claims.  Would fishermen and tax collectors have been willing to die for something they knew was not true?  Absolutely not.  No liar is willing to lay down his life to preserve the life of his lie.  Lies are by their very nature self-serving, and it is not in the nature of a liar to sacrifice for his lie.  Logically, the resurrection of Jesus Christ must be true, or none of his followers would have been willing to die for it.

Because of Jesus’ sacrificial death, human beings was able to be in communion with God for the first time since their fall.  God called to Himself a new people, purified from evil and wholly set apart from the rest of humanity.  In essence, He created an entirely new sort of human to serve and follow Him.

At this point, history is moving toward its fourth and final encounter with the pond’s surface: the return of Jesus Christ and the final judgement of all mankind.  It is at this moment that all evil will be wiped away, that all pain and sorrow ill be erased, and that all happiness will be made everlasting.  Christianity gives history true purpose in acknowledging that yes, there is evil in the world, but that God will destroy it and bring about an everlasting utopia.  This historical perspective is not irrational and unfounded, but is instead based upon historical evidence and logic.  Jesus Christ lived and died.  He was resurrected from the dead.  And the Bible, which is the most historically reliable ancient text in existence, teaches that He will one day return to save the world.  This is the only true view of history.

Economics

Perhaps the single most obvious conflict between worldviews in the United States is centered around economic difference.  The Occupy Wall Street movement, the government bailout of the auto industry, and the continuing increase of welfare programs were all key battlegrounds in the economic civil war currently raging in the United States.  There are two sides in this war: those who advocate greater government control over economics, and those who advocate less.

In order to properly address this conflict, one must look at the consequences each perspective has in the real world.  Government control over economics is an example of the state stepping outside the areas in which it has authority.  As in all such cases, such control has significant negative consequences.  Government control typically takes the form of higher taxation and more regulation over business.

What does higher taxation do?  In the long run, it stagnates the economy.  Taxes take many forms, but the primary ones are income tax and sales tax.  Income tax takes money out of people’s hands by preventing it from ever arriving there in the first place.  Consider this rudimentary example: suppose a nation has an income tax of five percent.  John is paid forty thousand dollars a year.  However, because of the income tax, his income is only thirty-eight thousand dollars a year.  Suppose that now the nation’s government raises the income tax to ten percent.  Though John is still being paid the same amount, his income has now gone down to thirty-six thousand dollars a year.  Imagine another scenario: this nation’s sales tax is five percent.  John wants to buy a television.  He does not need it, but his family would enjoy watching movies and TV shows on it, so he decides to purchase it.  The television he looks at costs eight hundred dollars.  Because of the sales tax, however, he has to pay eight hundred forty dollars for the television, which is not a terrible price increase.  However, the nation’s government raises the sales tax to fifteen percent.  Now the same television John wanted to buy, though it has the same price, will cost him nine hundred twenty dollars.  Given his recent decrease in income, John decides that he cannot afford to purchase the television at this new price.

What happened in this scenario?  The government’s increased taxation of John caused him to rethink his purchase of his television.  This is not a tragedy for John and his family, but the effects of this decision are felt throughout the economy, because John is not the only worker in the world.  For every John, there are thousands of Petes, Sams, Erics, and Mikes who have been placed in the exact same situation.  When all of them decide not to buy the new television because they cannot afford it, what happens to the television company?  It just lost thousands of purchases.  Suppose just a thousand people decide not to purchase the eight hundred-dollar television they would have bought.  The television company just lost eight hundred thousand dollars.  It cannot afford to pay as many workers as it currently has now that it has lost such revenue, so it closes a factory to cut costs.  The income of the workers at this factory suddenly went down to zero, which keeps them from purchasing other products they would have otherwise purchased.  This loss of purchases impacts other companies, which impacts other workers, which impacts other companies, and so on.  Government interference in the economy through raising taxes has caused problems for that economy that would not have been present had the government never interfered.

What does regulation of businesses do?  In the long run, it raises unemployment.  A prime example is the set of regulations that controls how and where a company can build a plant.  Suppose Arti-Organs International wants to build a plant for producing synthetic twelve-foot pipes for one of its most popular products.  They find the perfect location outside an American city and make plans to begin building.  This city has an unemployed population of twelve thousand, and the plant would bring five hundred new jobs to the area.  However, because of the zoning laws, the company would have had to pay significant fees and go through several layers of regulations and red tape before being approved to open this plant.  Therefore, they decide to move the plant outside the country and build it in India, where there are exponentially fewer regulations and employees are a fraction of the price.

What happened in this scenario?  Because of the government’s regulations on building their plant, Arti-Organs International moved the country to India.  Their plant created five hundred new jobs in that country, helping its economy.  However, five hundred American workers remained unemployed when they would have gotten jobs had the plant been built.  As in the previous scenario, the lack of income they continue to experience prevents them from purchasing products, which impacts other companies, impacting other workers.  Government interference in the economy through regulation of business has cause problems for that economy that would not have been present had the government never interfered.

Clearly, government interference in the economy does far more harm than good.  What is the proper solution to this?  It is simple: keep government out of business.  Free-market economies do far better than socialist ones.  During the Cold War, the United States won the arms race against the USSR precisely because it had a free-market economy versus Russia’s communist economy.  While the United States had the wealth to pursue greater militarization, the USSR’s economy had been bankrupted by corrupt government officials and failed Marxist economic ideas.  Their economy collapsed, prompting Mikhail Gorbachev to pursue his policy of glasnost, which was a significant factor in the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.

Government regulation over the economy produces wealth for no one except government officials.  When bureaucrats and politicians control the wealth of a nation, the wealth disappears from the hands of the citizenry.  Though socialists dream of equalizing pay and producing greater wealth for all people, socialism produces the opposite effect: a tiny minority of the population becomes absurdly wealthy while the rest of the nation is plunged into abject poverty.  The only solution for government control is less government control.  The only solution to regulation is freedom.  The only way to produce prosperity is to allow private individuals to exercise their God-given right to personal property and allow corporations to produce jobs and wealth by practicing good business.

Politics

The state is one of the three aspects of the ideal society.  It possesses several key responsibilities that coincide with specific attributes and rights of human beings.  These responsibilities are to dispense justice, to protect freedom, and to maintain order.  Members of a society are expected to respect and obey the state only as long as it stays within the bounds of its responsibility; since the state has no authority outside the three realms of its responsibility, the society’s members are not required to obey it should it step outside those realms.  On the contrary, they are required to not obey it in order to prevent it from attempting to expand its influence, as is so often the case today.

The state’s responsibility to dispense justice corresponds to man’s fallen nature.  Justice is protecting the innocent from those who would seek to harm them.  This is necessary because, since man is fallen, there is evil present in the world.  In practice, criminals exist who would run rampant did the state not have the authority to punish them from their wrongdoing.  Laws against murder are just because they do no harm to the innocent (someone who did not murder anyone does not need to fear the punishment of the state) while giving the state the power to punish murderers.

The state’s responsibility to protect freedom corresponds to man’s inherent freedom.  When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them free will, not so that they could abuse it, but so that they could use it within the context of what was right in order to bring Him glory.  The same free will exists within each of their descendants: every human being has the right to make his own choices regarding what he will do with his life so long as those choices do not violate others’ safety or freedom.  This is the reason that, though cutting, anorexia, and bulimia do significant damage to the individual, they are not illegal: the person who cuts himself is not actively endangering or damaging another’s person or property and is therefore not prevented from doing so in recognition of his free will.  Not only does the state have the responsibility to not violate individuals’ freedom, but it also has the responsibility to prevent others from violating their freedom.  Anti-slavery laws are a prime example: enslaving someone and forcing him to do your will is illegal because it prevents the one you are enslaving from making his own decisions and pursuing his own future.  The state has the authority to punish slavery because it is required to protect individual freedom.

Finally, the state’s responsibility to maintain order reflects the order that is built into the world.  God did not design mankind to live in disorder.  Rather, He gave humanity the mandate to “fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28)  What are we to subdue if not the disorder inherent in untamed areas?  There is no such thing as a park or a garden where humanity does not exist.  Certainly, God designed the world in an orderly fashion—gravity, the seasons, and the water cycle are only a few examples of this—but it is to mankind He gave the unique opportunity and mandate to bring order into the chaotic realm of nature.  Such responsibility carries over into society.  Terrorists and vandals are notable examples of those who seek to bring disorder into society’s order.  Were it not for the state, humanity would descend into abject chaos. 

In conclusion, it is for these three reasons that the state exists: to dispense justice, preserve freedom, and maintain order.  In anarchy—the absence of the state—there is no safety, no freedom, and no order.  It is therefore evident that the state must exist for peace to be preserved.  Since the state was established by God to fulfill three specific responsibilities, members of society are required to submit to the state within the realms inherent to those responsibilities.  Unfortunately, since the state is made up of fallen and sinful humans, it has the inescapable tendency to seek to expand its power.  If society’s members cooperate with the state’s quest for greater power, they will soon find themselves under a totalitarian rule that upsets the balance in the culture and itself begins to work against the virtues it is supposed to protect: spreading injustice, creating slaves, and breeding disorder.  It is the individual’s responsibility to follow the state where it has authority and to disobey the state where it does not.  In doing so, the state will be enabled to follow its God-given mandate and preserve general tranquility.

Law

From an early age, children are taught that there are rules of what they may or may not do.  As they age, they learn to drive and discover that there are laws of what they may or may not do on the road.  When they become adults, the full weight of the law settles on their shoulders: a complex system of dos and don’ts that seem designed more to bewilder than anything else.  It is natural to sometimes question the rationale behind these rules and regulations, wondering what benefit can possibly be derived from something that seems plainly foolish.

Welcome to the discipline of law, one that is integral to daily life; however, it need not be as bewildering as common legal practice suggests.  This manifesto is not an exposition of laws themselves; rather, it is an outline of the foundation upon which a legal system should be based.  The goal of this paper is to first explain conflicting views on the law and then explain why one particular view is preferable.

Many people today believe in what is called legal positivism.  This is the belief that the foundation for the law is found in the state.  This is, in fact, a logical conclusion: since the state is the aspect of society responsible for making laws, it makes sense that it would be the source of authority from which the law is derived.  However, there is a fatal flaw involved in legal positivism: if the state is the source of the law, how permanent is the law?  In the United States, the government is constantly changing hands between political parties, transferring its allegiance from liberal to conservative and back again.  These sides have very different beliefs and agendas; therefore, what power gives the law general authority?  If the law is based upon the state, and the state changes its views every so often, what is to keep the law from changing just as often?  If such is the case and the laws in place this year may easily be replaced next year, why follow these laws when they will soon be obsolete?  Why waste time obeying a standard that has no foundation apart from political whim?

The main issue with this perspective is that it comes from an erroneous foundation.  People who embrace legal positivism also nearly always embrace atheism and some form of evolution.  Since they do not believe in any sort of deity, there can be no foundation for law outside of this universe.  Since evolution calls humanity the pinnacle of evolution, humanity is the only viable source from which the law can emanate.  However, humans are fatally flawed.  Take a look at the two world wars.  Millions of soldiers were killed in those wars without any side truly benefiting as a result.  Look at the slavery that existed, and still exists, across the world.  Do individuals who would chain and demean others of their own species seem responsible enough to create their own system of law?  Hardly.

Since humanity is not a viable foundation for the law, there must be another foundation.  The only other rational source of the law is God.  One cannot look to animals or to trees for legal systems: one would end up with a system mandating either killing and eating other humans indiscriminately or remaining stationary for life and attempting to grow as tall as possible.  Law must have an intelligent origin: if humans are not an option, God is the only choice.

If God is the source of law, how does He reveal it to humanity?  There are two channels He uses: the natural and the divine.  Natural law is that which is apparent in the structure of the world.  Everyone knows that killing is wrong.  It is easy to look at the world and argue that not everyone knows this, but such is not the case.  Cultures that embrace honor killings, for instance, still have to find a way to justify it.  No one says, “I am going to kill you because I want to.”  Instead, they say, “I am going to kill you because you dishonored your family,” “I am going to kill you because my honor dictates I revenge myself on my friend,” or some such rationalization.  All humans who do not have some sort of mental disorder know that killing at its core is wrong.  So it is with stealing.  “Mine!” is one of the first words a baby will scream at its sibling or its parent.  The concept of personal possession is deeply ingrained in the human psyche: it is not taught or learned, it is programmed into the very nature of who we are.  Having what is yours taken from you is a violation of your ingrained awareness of personal property and naturally results in indignation and, in some cases, fury.

However, natural law is not enough to govern daily life.  It is for this reason that God also utilizes divine law, which is the sum of His explicitly revealed mandates for behaviour as laid forth in His Word, the Bible.  It is this set of mandates to which lawmakers should look in order to determine how to specifically address certain situations.  In fact, the phrase “lawmaker” is inherently incorrect, as humans should in no way be making laws.  Rather, members of the state should be known as students of the law: people who read God’s divine law and apply it to daily life.

The most important fact to be aware of in this system, however, is that it relies on the students of the law being impartial: they cannot favor one person or group of people over another, or the legal system God has implemented will not function.  It is only when those who apply God’s law to the world look at the situation without personal motive or preference that this legal system will properly function.

In conclusion, law is derived from God’s nature and takes two forms: natural law is revealed in the world and is instinctively known by all humans, while divine law is revealed in God’s Word and must be applied impartially to specific instances by people who dedicate their lives to understanding the mandates of God.  It is this system that functions most ideally in the world in which we live.

Sociology

Perhaps one of the most key disciplines in a worldview is the discipline of sociology: that is, the study of human society.  There are several reasons for this, the primary one being its universality.  All human beings live in a society of some form or another, and the worldviews they hold will determine the form those societies take.  Since society is impacted by, and has an impact on every person, it is essential to form a well-developed view on sociology.

What is society?  Society is a group of individuals who live together in a community.  Thus, society has many different spheres: your family is a society, as is your neighborhood, your city, your state, and your nation.  In Europe, society can also be extended to most of the continent, since the nations have such frequent contact with each other.  Since the term “society” suggests a certain common ground of shared perspectives, it is too far a stretch to say that a man in New York and a woman in Beijing are in a society, since there are many cultural, political, and religious differences between the two.  Society, then, is simply the collective whole of a group of human beings who are living in general cultural similarity and close geographic or political proximity.  Thus, while California is significantly separated geographically from Florida, the political ties between the two (namely, they are both in the United States), coupled with their cultural connections, place them in the same society.

Perhaps the most important concept in sociology is that while society does influence individuals, the latter influence society itself just as strongly.  It is essential to understand that the form which society takes is directly decided by the ideas—you could say the worldviews—of its individual members.  This is the reason behind “culture shock,” which is when a person travels to another country and feels lost because this new country is so different from his own.  Another term that could just as correctly be used is “societal shock.”  This is because culture is merely another phrase for society.  They have different emphases, but the two are largely the same.  Culture refers to the perspectives and ways of living formed by a society and handed down to successive generations.  Thus, society is defined by its culture.  One begins to see the connection: society is defined by the views of its members; society is also defined by its culture; therefore, it is not unreasonable to say that the ideas of individuals form what is commonly known as culture.

No one living in this modern age of constant technological advances and international connectivity can live with the belief that all humans live the same way.  In the United States, one constantly hears about the plights of citizens in third-world countries: the very phrase suggests that those countries operate on a separate plane from first-world countries like the United States and Great Britain.  Nothing today more clearly demonstrates this fact than the stark contrast between Western and Islamic nations.  The differences between the values espoused by Islam and those cherished by Westerners are so great that they have given rise to multiple terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists against nations across North America and Europe, leading to the War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle Eastern nations.  Clearly, the cultures in Islamic societies versus Western societies are different enough to cause armed conflict.  This means that the views held by individuals in those two areas are alien to one another.

Most societies around the world can be pictured as a trident.  The haft represents the culture itself: an all-encompassing perspective on the world.  However, a closer look at society reveals that the culture actually has three prongs; typically, one represents society’s social aspect, one represents society’s religious aspect, and one represents society’s political aspect.  The fusing of these three prongs is what creates a strong and vibrant culture, which gives rise to a stable society (stable in the sense that it does not dissolve into chaos).  As this paper is being written from the bounds of a Western society, it is appropriate to explain how this society fits into the three-prong model.

Western society can also fairly accurately be called post-Christian society.  The influence Christianity has had on Western culture throughout the centuries cannot be ignored: values such as the right to life, women’s rights, and racial integration would not be present had not Christianity infused them into their culture (which, incidentally, is an example of individuals influencing society).  Therefore, while Western society has deviated significantly from its Christian roots, those roots are undeniable, and using the term post-Christian to describe it acknowledges this fact.  What is the basic form this culture takes?  The social aspect is centered around the family: one man and one woman, married to each other and raising their children in their home.  While this is the basic model for the family, several variations have emerged through the years.  Most significant are the emergence of cohabitation, divorce, and public education.  With these developments, the family has largely been stripped of its influence as parents move into and out of their children’s lives, and children are transferred into society to be raised by adults foreign to the home.  The religious aspect is centered around the church.  While this slot was once almost exclusively filled by the Christian church, such is no longer the case.  Certainly, the majority of Americans call themselves Christians, but church attendance is sporadic at best, and the rise of religions like Islam and Humanism belie those who claim Christianity’s influence today is as strong as it once was.  Finally, the political aspect is centered around the state.  In America, this state has limited constitutional responsibility and power; however, recent legislation and political movements reveal either an ignorance for these limits or a blatant defiance of the constitutional definition of the government’s authority.  Such moves have resulted in the Western state gaining increased power and influence.  In conclusion, Western society is defined by the three prongs of the family, the church, and the state.  However, the family and the church are rapidly becoming subservient to the state; this is not necessarily happening because the state is grabbing power (although some such grabbing is undeniably occurring), but rather because the family and the church are becoming atrophied and losing their influence on people’s lives.

Western society, though many people live in and cherish it, is not the ideal society.  Certainly, it is the best alternative available today, but it can definitely be improved upon.  The ideal society comes from a proper understanding of God’s nature, man’s relationship to God, and man’s responsibility in life.  The Christian model of the family, the state, and the church is a good foundation for society because it recognizes man’s fallen nature, raises him in light of this reality, governs him firmly to prevent his sin from harming others, and finally points him toward reconciliation with God.

In this view, the family is defined as a married couple whose responsibility it is to raise their children in their own home and lead them, gently but firmly, in the proper path.  Since marriage is defined as one man and one woman joining together for the rest of their lives, this family unit is a strong building block for society, with both the father and the mother working together to raise their children to become productive and prosperous adults.

The state is defined in terms of its primary role, which is to dispense justice.  Since justice is protecting the innocent from the wicked, the state has a far more limited role in the ideal society than it does in Western society.

Finally, the church is defined as the primary communicator of God’s nature and desire for His creation.  As such, it plays an incredibly important role in society.  Since it is responsible for preserving and dispensing proper instruction concerning God, it is both the most powerful of the three aspects of society and the most accountable to God.  Since all humans will be judged by God at the end of their lives, those who make up the church will have to answer to God for the way they fulfilled their duties.  If they lead astray those who are relying on them for accurate spiritual guidance, they will be severely punished by God at the final judgement.  (For biblical support of this concept, see Jeremiah 23:1-2.)

In conclusion, the ideal society follows the trident model of family, state, and church.  While each aspect of society has specific realms of authority and responsibility, certain aspects have greater or smaller realms than do others.  The state has the least authority of the three, existing solely to protect the members of the society.  The family has greater authority than the state; as its purpose is to provide foundational instruction both intellectually and spiritually, it has the great responsibility of shaping children into virtuous members of society.  The church has greater authority than either the family or the state; since it shepherds not only children and adolescents but also grown adults in the way of God, it must be given the respect it deserves for both its commitment to the truth and its accountability before God.  It is only when society follows this model that it will properly function in the way God desires it to.

Psychology

Most people in today’s world look at psychology through a monistic worldview.  What this means is that they answer the fundamental psychological question via monism.  To understand monism—and the competing view of dualism—we must first further examine the fundamental question of psychology: that is, what is human nature?  In other words, is human consciousness a natural phenomenon, or is it a supernatural one?

As previously stated, the commonly accepted view is monism.  Monism states that the human consciousness is nothing more than an epiphenomenon, or a mere byproduct of a certain set of circumstances.  When monists say the human consciousness is an epiphenomenon, they mean that it is a byproduct of the physical brain.  Thus, the real definition of monism: there is one single, natural reality in the world.  This has given rise to psychological monism, or the belief that mind and matter are one and the same.

When someone says that the human mind is tied solely to the physical human brain, he is really saying that personality, memory, identity, and ultimately all self-awareness are tied directly to the physical brain.  However, there is a problem with this view, and it is actually quite a significant one.  This problem is that the human brain is constantly changing.  According to developers, the physical structure of a human’s brain continues developing well into his twenties.  Yet even past that, its structure is constantly changing throughout the course of his life.

Can you see already the issue with psychological monism?  If personality is tied to the physical brain, everyone’s personality is constantly changing.  This is not the sort of change like taste in music, however, but is instead a significant and radical transformation: the sort that, if it were observed by an expert, would more than likely be labeled mental instability.  Imagine the chaos in your personal life if every member of your family were constantly transforming into another kind of individual.  One week, Matt is studious and conscientious, with a very generous and caring attitude.  By the next week, Matt is rebellious and apathetic, with a very self-centered and individualistic attitude.  It is impossible to have a lasting relationship with such a person, because there is no feasible way to form bonds of any sort with him when there is no guarantee he will be the same person the next day.

Additionally, the monistic concept of the mind being nothing more than a side effect of the brain forces the thinking individual to face the reality of memory.  If the human consciousness is truly tied to the human body, there must be a correlation between memory and the brain.  However, though scientists have been searching for this correlation for decades, they have been unable to find anything remotely close.  Even focusing specifically on those sections of the brain they can see as having some sort of relation to memory, they have been unable to find the direct memory-to-cell correspondence necessary to verify the idea of memories being housed in the brain.

However, if that is the case, monism’s entire foundation is pulled away, causing the rest of its perspective to crumble under the weight of reality.  All that is left in such a situation, then, is that fundamental psychological question: what is human nature?  As has already been mentioned briefly, there are two options when discussing this question.  The first, monism, can be seen to lack any real constitution under the pressure of logic.  That leaves one alternative: dualism, or what is more properly known as mind and body dualism.

This belief system holds as one of its fundamental precepts a belief in the supernatural.  However, this is not a blind faith in something unverifiable.  Monism answers the question of human nature by saying the mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain.  Dualism replies instead that the mind and the brain belong to two very different realities.  This is the only logical option, since it has already been demonstrated that they cannot belong in the same category.  The brain is very obviously a part of the body.  Thus, it is part of the physical realm.  If the mind cannot be of the same form as the brain, and the brain is physical, the mind cannot be physical.  What, then, is left apart from the spiritual?

The interesting dimension of this perspective is that it opens up possibilities as relates to the supernatural not available in monism.  Since the mind is part of the spiritual realm, it is possible to discuss human nature in spiritual terms.  From this ability stems the most rational explanation of the presence of evil in the world.

Monists hold to the concept of behaviorism, which is the belief that all human action is simply a product of the individual’s environment.  Behaviorism is basically the idea that every man is nothing more than a cause-and-effect machine: in goes a set circumstance and out comes a set behaviour pattern.  Under behaviorism, the reality of evil is a result of the environment in which the individual lives.  Every man is inherently good: it is from society that evil stems.  However, is society not made up of nothing more than many men?  If every human being is inherently good, and society is made up only of human beings, how is society evil?  This is obviously an irrational thought process that possesses a significant disconnect between concept and reality.

Dualism, on the other hand, allows one to take a standpoint that says: yes, every man is inherently good.  At least, every man was originally intended to be inherently good.  Every man, however, is very obviously not inherently good.  In fact, quite the opposite is true.  What happened?  Man sinned.  The word “sin” came from a Hebrew term used in archery, meaning to miss the target.  It is beyond the scope of this paper to reason on theological concepts of origin and the Deity behind it, but mankind was created by a God with every right to set certain expectations for His creation.  Humanity, however, had plans of its own, and so it high-tailed it away from those expectations.  Unfortunately, it is not exactly intelligent to head in a direction opposed to the plan set out by the omniscient Designer.  Suppose a lighter took it into its head that its purpose was to put out fires, and so at every opportunity it released its fumes on a flame in an attempt to smother it.  The results would be less than exemplary, would they not?

In the same way, humanity’s decision to turn from the One Who made it has resulted in nothing but pain, not only for society as a whole, but for each individual within that society.  This is the explanation for mental issues: the mind is a supernatural phenomenon, made to operate on a plane separate from the one the brain inhabits.  Humans are intuitive beings.  You know the feeling: your relationship with your best friend is strained in some way.  You may not have discussed it with your friend, but you know the issue is there, and it makes you incredibly sad and uncomfortable.  In the same way, your mind, made to operate on a spiritual level, knows it is not in a healthy relationship with its Creator.  Mental illnesses are very real, but they are not physical issues.  They are psychological issues, and they are real because guilt is real.

Problems with any human mind arise only when the individual is not serving the purpose for which he was created.  That is why God had to reforge His relationship with humanity through several drastic measures: the image has become so distorted, the purpose so lost, that the blueprint is nigh unrecognizable.  There is hope, though, because through turning around and accepting the offer of reconciliation with God, we can be freed from the guilt we all hold within us.  The guilt is real, and it makes our minds’ problems real.  Be freed from the guilt, and psychological health will follow.

Biology

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  These words, the first in the Christian Bible, form the basis for any Christian’s beliefs within the area of biology.  While there are disagreements within Christendom over methodology and timeline, all Christians agree that the universe came into being through God’s creative power.  In nearly all non-Christian circles, a rational outlook of logical discourse shuts down as soon as this subject is brought up.  This is because the standard view of Christianity as it relates to science is that it doesn’t.  Most secular experts would agree that religion has no place in science, and that all views promoted by Christians are a matter of subjective irrationality.  But if viewed objectively, the scientific evidence for Christian views is nearly overwhelming.

Teleology is the study of design in nature.  A teleological position postulates that there is an ultimate Designer who had a direct hand in creating the universe, and that this Designer did so in a set, orderly manner that left clear traces and patterns that can be observed without any previous scientific expertise.  Perhaps the most famous teleological argument comes from British philosopher William Paley.  In his watchmaker argument, Paley presented a hypothetical situation.  Suppose a man is walking through the woods and happens upon a watch.  Bending down a picking up the watch, he observes it for only a moment before concluding that someone must have made it.  Now suppose the situation is changed.  Suppose the man observes the watch for several long moments and finally concludes that it must have come about by a strange chance, by wind and water eroding the metals into their intricate shapes over a process of thousands, maybe even millions of years, and that finally, at just the right moment, lightning struck the watch and allowed it to leap into motion.  Any thinking human would call the man in the second situation mad, would he not?  And yet that is exactly what modern secular scientists do.  They peer into the microscope, or fit their eyes to the telescope, and stare at wonders men a hundred years ago would never have imagined in their wildest dreams.  And then they conclude, with a shake of their heads, that it is a remarkable result of an ancient explosion that could bring about such complexities.

But is it possible for a world to exist that was both made by chance and possesses such remarkably cohesive qualities?  Mathematicians today claim that numbers are arbitrary, and that it could just as easily be said that two and two equal nine.  Scientists claim that the physiological components of every species on this planet are merely random products of a mindless evolutionary cycle, and that another planet could just as easily produce life of equal efficiency with an entirely different physiognomy.  But if this is the case, why is it that structures in nature are tied to obviously mathematical principles?  The most efficient method for overlaying structures in a circular pattern follows a specific series of numbers known as the Fibonacci sequence, in which diagonal patterns within a circle will always fall on consecutive numbers in this sequence.  How interesting, then, that the seeds in the head of a flower are arranged in just that same pattern.  If you go outside and look for a flower with the same basic structure as a sunflower, you can count the seeds in diagonal curves around the seed head, then count those same seeds in diagonal curves around the seed head in the other direction, and you will always come up with two numbers that follow each other in the Fibonacci sequence.  The same pattern holds true—although it is less obvious—in the arrangement of the leaves around a flower’s stem.  A wondrous coincidence, isn’t it?

Here we have an example of mathematical and paleontological principles corresponding and complementing each other.  This is a prime example of evidence for teleological ideas.  How hard it must be to hold to ideas that do not hold to teleological principles!  Indeed, Charles Darwin, the great champion of macroevolution, wrote that the very thought of a peacock feather was enough to make him ill because of the evidence it presented for design.  Similarly, teachers today tell their students that it is important to always keep in mind that the molecular wonders they are observing through the microscope are not the product of design.  Why is it necessary to do this if they were not designed?  Why is there such overwhelming teleological evidence if teleology is not, in fact, true?  I would propose that it is because teleology is, in fact, true, and that evidence for design in nature is so tremendously present because the universe was designed.

And so, with one simple case study, the argument for chance as a major factor in the emergence of the universe is significantly weakened.  Further evidence helps to confirm this position.  A major factor in determining the presence of design, even from a layman’s observational standpoint, is the presence of language, or rather the presence of an intelligence-bearing sequence of symbols.  This is what allows the human mind to instinctively distinguish between random wisps of cloud and the pattern left behind by a sky-writing plane.  The one it recognizes as having no distinct order.  The other it immediately concludes is legible script bearing ideas in the form of symbols.  Part of this comes from past experience: we recall our own personal interactions with the symbols that we now recognize as making up new concepts foreign to us.  But another, equally important aspect of this recognition comes from the human mind’s natural ability to locate design.  Before the discovery of the Rosetta stone, archeologists had no idea what Egyptian hieroglyphics meant.  Yet even without the means to discern their meaning, the archeologists knew they had a set meaning, knew they had been written with a specific intent in mind.  How did they know this?  How could they discern that they were a form of written language rather than mere artistic decorations on the walls?  Through what could be termed the natural human design detector.

In the same way, when looking into the cell, man can observe the remarkable functionality of DNA and the way in which it is strung together possesses an order that is not just random, but bears a series of codes that communicate the information necessary to promote each and every one of the cell’s functions.  Such a code bears specific intent and is a series of recognizable patterns that communicate meaning: an obvious example of intelligent origin that reveals design.

Not only is this design present in nature, but the Bible addresses this issue in the first verses of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.”  The authors of the Bible got it; this is perhaps the original teleological argument.  All of nature points to an intelligent Designer.  The universe did not come about by chance—it was created.

Ethics

This study of ethics starts with three premises.  The first is that the God of the Bible is real.  The second is that He created the world.  The third is that He continues to reign over the world in a manner both engaged and omnipotent.  These three ideas make up the basic foundation upon which a solid worldview should be based, and as such, they also make up the basic foundation upon which a proper view of ethics is built.

God is real.  This simple statement ultimately carries the most important meaning any three words can hold.  Since God is real, He is measurable.  Not measurable in the sense that He can be quantified as an exact value, but measurable in the sense that a variable in an equation is measured.  That variable will always exist, and can be relied upon to be the variable it is, but it cannot be measured without the proper information: information that is, in this case, inaccessible to the human mind.  God is, in a sense, equivalent to infinity.  It will always behave the same way: in other words, it will always have the same nature.  God’s nature is one of holiness.  And that is not because there is some standard outside of God to which He naturally conforms.  Nothing else has ever existed self-sufficiently outside of the framework set in place around the world as it is today.  God was always there.  He is holy purely because holiness comes from Him.  To be holy simply means to be set apart.  And God is, by His very essence, set apart from the universe, as surely as a carpenter is set apart from a house.

Because God is the Creator of all that exists, He is entitled to complete authority over His creation.  It would be absurd for a mechanized toy to tell a toymaker that it would rather not be made to walk when it is wound up, thank you very much, and that it would rather decide for itself what its function ought to be.  In the same way, God has the absolute right to set upon His creation any requirements He pleases.  This includes an ethical system.

God’s nature is relevant because everything in the world is in some way a reflection of an aspect of His personality.  His nature not only gives Him the right to devise an ethical system, but it also provides the standard for that system.  In Genesis 1:27, the Bible—on whose authority our first premise rests its assumptions about God—states that man was made in the image of God.  What this means is that mankind, the only species capable of cognitive thinking, is also the one that most fully reflects God’s nature.  As such, the standard for mankind is the same standard for God: holiness.  Since man is made in the image of God, he is expected to be set apart in the same manner.

The important thing to realize about this system of ethics is that it is unchanging.  God’s nature is constant.  As such, the moral standard by which humans are expected to abide will not change.  There are no surprises: the standard will be consistent throughout eternity, and so, once learned, will serve across the entirety of one’s lifetime.  If that is the case, how can the standard be learned?  If God’s nature is hidden to humans, how is it possible to discover the standard by which we are supposed to abide?  There are two methods that may be used, inextricably interwoven and tied up in two key elements of the Christian faith: general revelation and special revelation.

General revelation is the information about God’s nature that He has coded into creation.  This is easily accessible just through viewing the world.  God’s incredible order and structure is evidenced by the layout of the seeds found at the center of a sunflower.  His delight in beauty is found in the vibrant colors He has instilled into the flora and fauna found across the globe.  His sense of humor can be detected in the interesting design choices of creatures such as the giraffe or the platypus.  Such knowledge is gained through general revelation, which exposes broad shades of God’s character.  Special revelation, on the other hand, is information about God’s nature that has been given directly to the human race in order to allow us to understand specific details about God’s nature; for instance, His detestation of pride, dishonesty, and murder, or His high regard for faith, hope, and love.  Such incomprehensibly complex structures as the Trinity, such mindboggling concepts as God incarnate, are all discovered through the special revelation of the Bible.  In a sense, then, if God’s nature were a play, general revelation would be the setting and the backstory, the scene and the props, while special revelation would be the characters who actually move the story forward and progress the plot.

One last thing must be explained as regards this system of ethics: it cannot be completed.  Every human being is destined to failure.  If you doubt this, look around at the world you live in.  Murder, rape, theft, corruption, deception, sadism, war…  These are only a few of the problems alive and thriving on this civilized, progressive, twenty-first century planet known as Earth.  Would such problems be present if all humans followed the standard laid out for them?  If every mandate of the Holy One were carried out, would millions upon millions die every year at the hands of barbarians?  The simple answer is no.  And that is because no replica is ever able to live up to the original.  Man was made in the image of God, but he is not God.  And so God had to live as man in order to fulfill the standard laid upon mankind.  That is the greatest mystery of Christian ethics, and it is found in the special revelation known as the Gospel.

Philosophy

If we were to ask a Christian how he knows all mankind is fallen, he would probably return with the answer, “Because the Bible says so.”  This is true, but it is not the only way we can know that mankind is fallen.  The essence of the entirety of science is the act of observing different facets of the world and formulating opinions based on these observations.  Looking at the facts, it is obvious through humanity’s actions that we are not perfect.  Crime is rampant within modern societies.  Cruelty comes naturally to all people, the divorce rate is growing greater every year, and the continued corruption and failure within governments around the world all demonstrate clearly that humans are flawed.  And if humans are flawed, then our reasoning is naturally also flawed.  This means that, as a human, you are unable to rely on your knowledge.   Operating under your personal beliefs and thought processes will ultimately lead to your ruin.  The word science often brings to mind images of sterile environments, hard facts, and the inevitable correctness of any determinations made.  This is not the case.  Scientists are still humans.  Their knowledge and skill does not somehow raise them above the sometimes intelligent, more often unintelligent people that make up the common rabble.  Many would agree with this fact and yet argue that science is based purely on fact.  This is not the case.  It is true that it comes from a foundation of pure information, but much interpretation goes into the processing of data before a conclusion is made.  There is quite a bit of reasoning involved in the scientific process, and the imperfect minds of man often muddy the waters.  Just because someone has graduated from a class does not mean that he cannot still make mistakes.

This may be true, but most people are willing to look past this fact because of their belief that science is not biased.  This is patently false.  All people tend to assume the fact that someone does not believe in a god naturally makes him fair.  Unfortunately, nonbelief in a god is actually belief in the nonexistence of any god.  Saying you do not think something is true is the same as saying you think something is not true.  There is no such thing as an unbiased view, because every neutrality on an issue is a rejection of some stance on that issue, and every rejection of a belief is actually an acceptance of a belief opposed to that belief.  Christianity has been largely silenced in academia and science because of the claim that Christian scientists have a specific agenda that would affect their research.  Christians do not have an agenda, unless you classify a desire for truth as an agenda.  No, Christians are opposed because of their worldview.  A worldview is a set of beliefs, in the form of conscious or unconscious truth claims, that shapes the way a person interprets his experiences.  Worldviews are formed by upbringing, culture, peer group, religion, and many other factors: these factors each and every human being, and so every person has a worldview.  Humanity includes the scientists; there is not some sort of special other species that has perfect impartiality and clear judgement.  Scientists have worldviews—by and large extremely similar worldviews—and so Christianity has been opposed by scientists because its worldview conflicts with theirs.  Think what this means: an entire people group is largely prohibited from an entire field of work because they do not agree with another people group.  So much for equal opportunity.  This proves that secular science is actually much more biased than it claims Christianity is.  It does have an agenda: promoting certain views and maintaining them so that the masses will believe whatever they say.  By silencing Christians in the area of science, secularists have gained the ability to propagate any ideas they wish.  In their studies, they do not take into account any evidence that does not support their claims, and so it is obvious that they are biased.  Taking this into account, can we really say that scientists do not have a religion?  They do have a religion, and although they would not use these words, their reasoning sets up science as God and scientists as Its infallible prophets.  These are the so-called fair ideas that shape modern society through science.

Seeing that science is a religion, we must address the issue of faith.  Many would argue that, while Christianity requires a great deal of faith, science does not require any faith (or at least not an amount worth mentioning).  Again, this argument is faulty.  What is faith?  There are several definitions of this words on Dictionary.com, but two stand out in this instance.  The first is its definition as “a system of religious belief.”  If faith is a system applied to any religious belief, and religion is “something one believes in and follows devotedly,” then faith is a system applied to the science that scientists believe in and follow devotedly.  The second and more pertinent definition of faith is a “belief that is not based on proof.”  The fundamental disagreement between Christianity and science is one largely concerning the origin of the universe—whether a God created it (as Christians believe) or it just came into being (as some scientists believe). Now, the interesting fact about this argument is that the origin of the universe happened long ago, several millennia if not longer.  There are no records from that time that give an exact description of the origin of the universe.  Neither side has any proof to back up their beliefs, meaning that their beliefs are not based on proof.  Funnily enough, that sounds like the definition of faith.  So on the one side is science, which has faith that there is no God and the universe came into being via an impersonal cause; on the other side is Christianity, which has faith that there is a God Who was the personal cause of the universe.  Philosophy is not, then, a competition between a Christian’s faith and a scientist’s reason.  Instead, it is a competition between a Christian’s faith and a scientist’s faith.  Science is not the only side to use evidence, fact, and logic in its arguments: Christianity does so as well.  In other words, philosophy is also a competition between a Christian’s reason and a scientist’s reason.  Both use the same proof; the only difference is that science is convinced of the infallibility of human thought as manifested in science, whereas Christianity is convinced of the fallibility of human thought.  Thus, Christianity is not incompatible with philosophy, as so many would have us believe.  Christianity is perfectly compatible with philosophy because it takes faith and reason, and it merges them in order to investigate the facts of the universe.

These are those facts.  God created all things.  There is not a single object in existence that was not called into being by God.  This can be seen in the order that is present in all the world—the way that certain animals are perfectly adapted for the adverse conditions in which they live, the incredible adaptability of the human species, the fact that a flower’s seeds are arranged on the corolla in the way that uses space most efficiently, the fact that this arrangement can be predicted mathematically through the Fibonacci sequence—all this points to the divine creation of an intelligent God.  It is this author’s belief that God made man in His image, and as such man has a spiritual nature.  We are not only flesh and blood, matter that will decompose as soon as it is dead.  Nor are we purely mind and soul, existing separately from this world.  We are an amalgam of body and soul, mind and matter.  This means that our life has ultimate meaning.  Since we will live on after death, we can know that we do in our life will continue to matter even after we are dead.  There is great hope in this.

Theology

Looking around at the world, everyone asks three basic questions.  The first is, “Was the universe always here, or did it have some sort of beginning?”  According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, all processes that take place in a closed system will always devolve into a state of stasis.  If the universe is the sum of all things, it is by definition a closed system, making impossible any chance of it having always existed; if it had, it would by now be quite devoid of all energy.  With that established, the second question is, “Was the beginning of the universe caused or uncaused?”  Louis Pasteur proved through experimentation that the spontaneous generation of life is impossible.  If that is the case, something must have caused the beginning of the universe, or life would not exist.  The fact that you are reading this paper proves that life does exist.  Taking into account that conclusion, we can ask the third question, “Was this cause personal, or was it impersonal?”  This question has been the main point of contention between theists and atheists since time immemorial, and one in which both sides have several good points.  But the author of this paper, through observing the intricate details in the world and the way its many components manage to fall into the precise necessary model, which happens to follow the mathematical laws man has discovered, cannot help but come to the conclusion that this cause was a personal one.  The universe was created.

If the universe was created, then it must have some sort of Creator.  The most logical being to fill this role is the classical concept of the deity—in other words, God.  If God is the Creator of the world, then He must be intelligent.  If He were not, then He could not be a Creator—this would the equivalent of chance, of placing a pile of blocks in front of a dog and expecting it to form a letter with them.  In order for a skyscraper to be designed, the engineer who designed it must be intelligent; otherwise, it would be impossible for him to grasp the mathematical concepts necessary to construct a viable building.  If God is an intelligent Creator, then He must have some sort of goal.  Every creation in the world has a purpose, even the primitive pilings of a child in a sandbox.  Perhaps the purpose is to make something purely for its destruction, or maybe to tell an imaginary story; regardless, the purpose is there.  If the child has a purpose for his creations, how much more an intelligent adult?  And if the adult has a purpose for his creations, how much more an intelligent Creator God?  If God has a goal for His creation, then He will naturally direct its existence.  Once a house has been built, it is not left to fend for itself against the forces of nature and of time.  Instead, it is consistently maintained by builders so that it might better complete its purpose.  A storyteller does not simply start a story and then leave his audience to guess the rest of it.  Instead, he takes the myriad strands of the story and actively weaves a tapestry so that what he wants to say might be properly conveyed.

If God is the Creator of the universe, then He has the right to do anything with it.  The owner has the right to treat his possessions in whatever way he will.  A farmer has the right to decide whether he will milk his cow or kill it.  The owner of a tree has the right to leave it standing or to cut it down.  An orchard’s owner has the right to eat his fruit or to sell it.  He even has the right to let the fruit fall and rot, if that is his wish.  An author has the right to do whatever he will with the characters in his story.  He may kill them, nurture them, or assign them to any other destiny he pleases.  In the same way, the justice of the Creator is the ultimate justice for the creation.  Creation has no right to tell God He is wrong.  The only standard of what is right is the Creator’s standard: what He says is right, is right, and nothing He says is right, is wrong.

Unfortunately, creation doesn’t function in the way it was designed to.  The existence of a standard for behavior does not guarantee compliance with it.  Any teacher at a school knows that students are apt to disobey its policies.  Every parent can attest to the natural knack his children have for violating every rule he lays down.  The fact that something was designed with a certain purpose in mind does not guarantee the fulfillment of that purpose.  Fire was meant to warm, but instead it burns.  Water was meant to nourish, but instead it destroys.  A slightly more lighthearted example is that of the folding chair: it was meant for sitting, but instead it hits people across the head.  In the same way, people do not properly honor God.  All sins—murder, theft, adultery—are violations of man’s purpose.  The fact that false religions exist demonstrates that humanity has lost sight of the original reason it was created.

God must punish humanity for its violation of its purpose.  According to the Bible, God is a perfect and holy being.  In addition to that, He cannot abide disobedience from a purely pragmatic standpoint.  The standard is only as good as the enforcement.  To maintain justice, one must actually judge the violators.  The Bible states that man was made in the image of god.  Since God is eternal, mankind, too, must be eternal.  If that is true, then the judgement must also be eternal.  Since God is holy, He cannot abide the violation that is the sin of humanity, and so all sinners must be separated from His presence.  That is the nature of hell, which is the judgement reserved for the Creator’s deviant creation: pure separation from God.  The truth, however, is that, since God is the Creator, He is also the source and sustainer of life.  Being separated from God is more than just an eternal timeout.  Separation from life causes death, and so the judgement that awaits those who violate their purpose is eternal death.

But God desires reconciliation.  Of course the Creator wants to see His creation fulfill its purpose.  What author is not angered when his words are twisted to a new meaning?  What artist does not wish he could restore the twisted interpretation of his work?  God wants to be reconciled to humanity, but the only way that can be accomplished is through payment for the violations of man.  God cannot abide disobedience.  No good judge would look at a man he knows to be guilty of murder and forgive him his crime.  A just judge knows that the murderer must be held responsible for his actions.  In the same way, someone must be punished for humanity’s deviation from its purpose.  Someone must die the eternal death of hell.  This person, however, cannot be just anyone.  He must be eternal in order to fulfill the eternal sentence, and he must be perfectly innocent, so that he will not have to pay for his own transgression.  All of humanity has violated its goal, and yet humanity is the only eternal being besides God.  And so the only one able to fulfill the Creator’s standard is the Creator Himself.

Thus, Jesus Christ died that we might live.  To believe this, it is essential to grasp the confusing Trinitarian nature of god.  He is one single God, but He exists in three distinct persons.  That is to say, He has three different faces with three different purposes, three different modus operandi.  One of these three persons is Jesus Christ, and He fulfilled His purpose in His sacrificial death.  He lived the perfect life that it is impossible for humans to live, and then He died willingly, that He might suffer the eternal death His creation deserved.

This is not a God Who sits in the sky, waiting for someone to trip up so that He might pummel him.  Nor is this a God Who set the universe into motion and then sat back to watch the show.  This is a God Who created the universe in intricate detail, Who gave every creation a unique purpose.  This is a God Who saw a problem and actively stepped into His creation in order to take care of the problem, even when that meant His own death.  Through the person of Jesus Christ, man is now able to be spared the judgement of eternal death and instead given the reward of eternal life, because his crime was already paid for in full.