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The Rival Conceptions of God | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take your sources and notes
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  and uncover the crucial points of knowledge.
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  Today we are taking a look at some really Seminole thoughts on
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  the Christian worldview, specifically the foundational
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  differences in how people conceive of God.
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  We're using a framework from CS Lewis that is just incredibly
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  clear. We are.
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  We have excerpts from his book Mere Christianity, and we're
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  focusing entirely on his section about the competing concepts of
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  the divine. People often call it the rival
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  conceptions of God. And what this material does so
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  well is give us this remarkably clear structure.
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  It's like an intellectual sorting mechanism, you know?
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  It's a sorting mechanism. I like that.
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  Yeah, to categorize humanity's broadest beliefs, both
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  theological and secular. It's a way to see where
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  Christianity stands in the whole landscape of human thought.
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  So our mission today is to unpack Lewis's two big logical
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  divisions. He creates a sort of two step
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  filter. First, he separates all of
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  humanity into those who believe in some form of God and, well,
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  those who do not. Right, the first big cut.
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  And then the second step, which is where things get really
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  interesting, he separates the believers themselves based on
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  the moral character they give to God.
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  We're going to trace his logical path from the materialist who
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  rejects God to the theist, to the Christian who accepts a very
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  particular kind of God. And we really have to pay
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  attention to that distinction between a good God and a God who
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  is beyond good and evil. It's it's everything.
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  It is, and Lewis is such a skilled guide here because he
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  starts by clearing away things you don't need to worry about.
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  He shows that before you can argue for Christianity, you have
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  to be very precise about what you're arguing against.
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  His first moves are surprisingly generous to other world views,
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  but then he very quickly draws some very clear hard lines about
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  truth itself. OK, let's get into that.
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  Lewis starts this whole analysis with a point that I think
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  catches a lot of people off guard.
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  It's about what a Christian does not need to believe concerning
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  all the other religions in the world.
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  This insight right at the start, it sets the Christian view apart
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  from the materialist 1 and frankly from some less
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  thoughtful Christian views too. It really does.
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  Lewis just states it plainly. He says that if you are a
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  Christian, you do not have to believe that all other religions
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  are simply wrong all the way through.
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  You don't have to think they're entirely foolish or wicked.
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  He gives you this intellectual breathing room to say, OK, there
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  might be at least some hint of the truth in them.
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  Even in some beliefs that seem very strange or contradictory to
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  ours. Exactly.
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  It's a very open minded starting point.
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  It acknowledges that this search for meaning is universal.
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  But then he contrasts this and he does it sharply with the
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  atheist viewpoint. Lewis argues the atheist doesn't
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  have that same freedom. No, not at all.
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  The atheist, by necessity, has to believe that the main point
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  of all the world's religion. The central idea that there is a
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  God or God. Is just one huge mistake.
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  If that basic premise is false, then every single system built
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  on it, no matter the culture, the history, the place.
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  It's fundamentally wrong about the biggest question there is.
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  It's really an issue of intellectual burden, isn't it?
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  It is, and Lewis makes it personal.
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  He talks about his own years as an atheist.
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  Yeah, he said. He had to constantly try and
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  persuade himself that most of the human race across all of
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  time and every continent was just flat out wrong about this
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  one thing. That sounds exhausting.
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  He found it intellectually exhausting.
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  It's like having to declare yourself wiser than, yeah, well,
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  than all of humanity combined. He says that when he became a
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  Christian, he was able to take what he called a more liberal
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  view. That's such a crucial
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  psychological point. The atheist position requires
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  this certainty, almost a kind of intellectual hubris, you could
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  say, that rejects the broad common human experience of
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  seeking the divine. But the Christian can affirm the
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  universality of that search. They can recognize that moral
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  instinct that seems to be in everyone without having to
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  validate the specific theological answers other
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  religions come up with. That's it.
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  It recognizes that God hasn't left humanity without a witness
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  to His existence or without that knowledge of a moral standard
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  written on the heart. The moral.
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  Absolutely. That universal moral law
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  engraved on human consciousness, it means that people everywhere
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  are going to grasp some moral and, yeah, sometimes theological
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  truths. We see flashes of it everywhere
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  but, and this is a big but, Lewis is very quick to make sure
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  the we have hints of truth doesn't just slide into some
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  kind of soft relativism. Right, so while Christianity can
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  allow for these hints elsewhere, Lewis is explicit.
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  Being a Christian means that where Christianity differs from
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  other religions in substance, Christianity is right and they
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  are wrong. And this is where he brings in
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  that famous analogy. The arithmetic analogy.
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  Yes. He compares it to doing a math
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  problem. He says there's only one right
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  answer to a sum. All the other answers are just
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  wrong. That's the hard, objective
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  truth. But some wrong answers are
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  closer than others. The nuance is that some of the
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  wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.
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  It's so simple, but it perfectly captures the balance you need.
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  We can appreciate the attempt or the partial accuracy and some
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  ideas we see elsewhere. So a system that emphasizes,
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  say, self-control and charity, that's gotten closer to the
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  right answer than a system that promotes human sacrifice or
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  total nihilism of. Course.
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  But if that system ultimately contradicts the revealed truth
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  of the Christian gospel on the nature of salvation or the
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  identity of Christ, it's still a fundamental error.
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  The truth about God isn't an approximation.
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  It's a singular revelation. That's right if the correct
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  answer to 2 + 2 is 4. A person who gets 5 is wrong,
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  but their error is a lot smaller than the person who gets a
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  million. Both are wrong, both are wrong,
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  but one is clearly near to the truth.
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  The error contains a bigger hint of the correct answer.
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  This logical structure protects the exclusivity of Christ's
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  claims, but it still allows for this broad intellectual
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  acknowledgement of a shared human morality.
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  And this firm line of thinking leads directly to Lewis's first
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  major division of humanity. We move from how right are other
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  religions to the most basic question of all, do they even
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  believe in a divine being? Yes, the first big division,
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  Lewis separates the whole human race into the vast majority who
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  believe in some kind of God or gods, and the much smaller
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  minority who do not. And this alignment is
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  significant, isn't it? It grounds Christianity in the
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  sheer weight of historical and global consensus.
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  It does. He lists ancient Greeks and
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  Romans, modern savages, Stoics, Platonists, Hindus and
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  Muhammadans. They all fall into that theistic
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  category. History and anthropology are
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  firmly on the side of belief. Which immediately identifies the
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  opposing camp. The minority who?
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  Stand against this huge coalition of historical
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  believers, and Lewis is very specific about who they are.
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  He calls them the modern Western European materialists.
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  That phrase deserves a moment. Modern Western European
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  materialist. Why so specific?
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  Well, you have to remember when he's writing mid 20th century,
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  this is when scientific positivism and secular
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  philosophy were really taking off in Europe, challenging
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  centuries of Christian thought. So he saw materialism not as
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  some timeless universal philosophy like Stoicism, but as
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  a culturally and temporally specific thing.
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  It was an idea mostly confined to a certain demographic in the
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  modern era. That's great point.
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  It wasn't the default human position.
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  Not at all. Some ancient philosophies might
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  have been atheistic, but they weren't materialists in our
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  modern sense. They're usually pantheists or
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  duelists. Modern materialism says that
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  nothing exists except matter and energy, and everything,
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  including our thoughts and morality, is just reducible to
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  physical processes. So by defining the opponent that
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  way, Lewis is really positioning Christianity in solidarity with
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  the vast scope of human experience, arguing against what
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  he sees as a pretty recent intellectual trend.
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  Precisely. So to wrap up this first
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  section, Lewis gives Christians the intellectual space to
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  recognize objective truth outside of special revelation,
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  the hints of truth. But he insists on the finality
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  of Christian revelation where it differs, the arithmetic analogy.
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  And this puts Christianity in the historical majority of human
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  thought that affirms God's existence standing against the
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  modern materialist minority. And once you've established the
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  reality of a God, once you've crossed that first chasm, you're
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  then forced to ask the critical question that changes everything
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  else. What is this God like?
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  Exactly because the answer to that determines the entire moral
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  framework of reality. OK, so once we establish belief
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  in God, we move to the kind of God that's believed in.
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  This is where Lewis draws his 2nd and you can say more
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  critical dividing line. Right.
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  This is what defines the core theological stakes.
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  It splits all theists into two very distinct, mutually
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  exclusive camps. It's not about existence
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  anymore. Now it's about character and
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  morality. People who all believe in some
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  kind of divine being can be divided based on the sort of
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  character they attribute to that being.
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  Yes. The second separation is between
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  the God who is beyond good and evil and the God who is
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  righteous. Let's start with the first type.
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  Lewis identifies this as pantheism, and the defining idea
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  is a God who is beyond good and evil.
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  This is often, I think, the most difficult concept for people
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  raised in an Abrahamic tradition to really get their heads
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  around. It's so radically different from
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  the biblical God. The core concept here is that
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  God exists outside of or He transcends human moral
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  categories entirely. So the distinction we make
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  between good and bad is, according to this view, just a
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  human point of view. It's a temporary relative
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  standard created by our very limited perspective.
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  And the implication is that as a person becomes wiser, they would
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  stop labeling things as good or bad.
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  They'd see things more clearly, realizing that everything is
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  good in one way and bad in another.
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  Right, so a famine is terrible for humans, but that might be
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  good for the ecosystem, reducing competition for resources.
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  From that comprehensive divine point of view, there's no moral
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  preference for either outcome. So the deeper you get into
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  wisdom or spirituality, the closer you get to the divine
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  perspective, and the whole distinction between good and
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  evil just dissolves. It dissolves entirely.
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  The divine nature in this view encompasses all things, light
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  and darkness, health and sickness, joy and sorrow.
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  It holds them all equally, without judgement or preference.
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  It's just pure being. That sounds like a philosophy of
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  totally acceptance, really. If the divine view holds no
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  distinction between good and evil, then whatever happens is
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  by definition part of that divine flow.
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  It has to be accepted. Precisely.
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  Lewis gives that sharp, illustrative example of the
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  cancer. Yeah, we call a cancer bad
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  because it kills a man, but the pantheist could argue that you
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  could just as well call a successful surgeon bad because
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  he kills a cancer. Which is perfectly functioning,
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  replicating Organism. Right.
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  It all depends on the point of view.
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  From the cancer's perspective, it's just doing what it was made
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  to do. From the human body's
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  perspective, it's a malicious invader.
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  If God is beyond good and evil, he simply is the totality of
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  both actions. He holds no preference for the
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  man's survival over the cancer survival.
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  It's neutrality at the highest level.
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  It means that morality is an illusion, then an illusion born
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  of our finite emotional perspective.
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  Yes, if you could see the whole picture, the apparent tragedy or
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  injustice or evil we see would just be necessary components of
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  the total divine reality with no real moral stain on them.
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  Lewis specifically named the philosopher Hegel and the Hindus
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  as holding forms of this pantheistic view.
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  I think we need to slow down there because the implications
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  of that system, they seem really attractive in a confusing world.
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  If you embrace the idea that everything is God, doesn't that
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  remove all fear of judgement? It does, and also,
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  paradoxically, all need for action.
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  It creates a state of what you might call philosophical
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  quietism. If tragedy strikes, the response
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  isn't outrageous acceptance. This is just God manifesting
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  itself in a difficult way. The goal isn't to change
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  reality, but to align yourself with it.
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  So it removes human guilt. It removes guilt, but it also
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  removes human responsibility for change.
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  OK, let's pivot now to the opposite idea, the theistic
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  conceptions, the idea that God is righteous and takes sides.
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  Right. This is the position held by
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  Jews, Muhammadans and Christians.
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  It's the core of the Abrahamic faiths.
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  The core concept here being that God is quite definitely good or
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  righteous. Yes.
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  This isn't a description of a neutral cosmic force.
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  It's an absolute moral personality with a discernible
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  fixed will. So this God is active.
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  He has judgments and preferences.
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  He takes sides not arbitrarily, but based on his righteous
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  character. He loves love and he hates
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  hatred. This is a legislative God, one
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  who wants humanity to behave in one way the moral way and not in
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  another. And that establishes an
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  immediate, binding moral imperative that isn't temporary
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  or relative. And that's why revelation is so
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  crucial in these traditions. The divine can't be silent on
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  moral matters. The divine must speak, insisting
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  on specific behavior. In this system, tragedy isn't
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  just a manifestation of the divine.
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  It's a deviation. It's an offense or a consequence
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  of disobedience. So this distinction, pantheism
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  versus theism, it's the most vital step Lewis takes after
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  affirming belief in God. Absolutely.
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  It separates those who see God as an impersonal force, the
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  universe as a whole, from those who see God as a distinct,
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  personal and righteous governor. If God is righteous, he is
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  judgmental. If God is beyond good and evil,
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  he is indifferent. Those are two completely
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  incompatible starting points. And this second division about
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  the moral nature of God is actually inseparable from a
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  third difference, which is about the relationship between God and
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  the physical cosmos. Exactly.
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  If God is righteous, he has to be separate from the evil in the
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  world. If he's beyond good and evil, he
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  can be the world. Lewis shows how these two
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  concepts hang together logically.
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  The character of God, then, whether he's moral or beyond
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  morality, that hangs together with a second crucial question,
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  God's relationship to the universe.
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  This is where the Christian emphasis on the Creator creation
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  distinction becomes so vital. And it aligns so strongly with
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  the biblical view of God's absolute sovereignty and
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  transcendence. Let's look at that pantheistic
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  relationship first, since it offers that completely unified
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  picture, OK? Pantheists usually believe that
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  God animates the universe as you animate your body.
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  That analogy of the universe as a body and God is the soul.
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  It's a powerful one. It implies total unity,
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  independence. If the universe is the body and
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  God is the soul, then the universe almost is God.
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  And the immediate implication of that is profound.
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  If the universe didn't exist, he wouldn't exist either.
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  So everything you find in the universe, a beautiful ocean or a
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  horrific natural disaster, is inherently a part of God.
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  So there's no outside vantage point from which to judge the
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  system. No, because the system itself is
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  the divine. Evil becomes just an inevitable
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  aspect of the divine nature, like a shadow is an inevitable
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  part of light. The Christian relationship is
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  completely contrary to this. Completely.
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  The Christian idea is that God invented and made the universe.
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  He is not the universe, nor is he dependent on it for his
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  existence. Right.
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  And this is where Lewis uses that other analogy.
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  The analogy detail of a man making a picture or composing a
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  tune. A painter is not the picture.
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  He doesn't die if his picture is destroyed.
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  The work is fundamentally separate from the worker.
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  But if I were a pantheist listening, I might push back
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  there, I might say. But the creator put his skill,
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  his thought, his very essence into the work.
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  It's an expression of him. How does Lewis handle that idea
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  of putting a lot of oneself into it?
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  He clarifies that he says the beauty and the interest of the
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  picture or the tune came out of his head.
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  It proceeded from his skill and imagination.
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  But his skill and his being are not in the canvas or in the
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  notes in the same way they are in his mind.
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  The picture is an expression of the artist, but it is not the
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  artist himself. That external relationship is
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  what matters. And this implication of
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  separation is the hinge that the whole biblical worldview turns
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  on. God is separate from creation,
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  transcendent, eternal. Existing independently of what
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  he created. And that separation means he
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  isn't tainted by the flaws of the work.
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  It allows him to stand as the impartial judge and legislator
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  over it. This is why the doctrine of
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  creation is so central. And that separation leads
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  directly to the moral consequences of separation.
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  If you don't take the distinction between good and bad
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  seriously, if you accept the pantheistic blurring of moral
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  lines, then it's easy to say anything in the world is part of
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  God. And that system is morally
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  comfortable with the status quo of the universe, no matter how
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  chaotic it seems. Right.
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  But if you accept the reality that some things are really bad
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  and that God is really good, then you have to believe God is
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  separate from the world, and further, you have to conclude
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  that some things we see in the world are contrary to His
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  original will and design. This is the intellectual space
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  where sin and rebellion find their definition.
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  It's a deviation from the Maker's blueprint.
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  And this leads to that moment of theological conflict when you're
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  faced with human suffering, when you're confronted with a
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  terrible reality, a cancer, a slum, a war.
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  The pantheist has a ready answer.
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  If you could only see it from the divine point of view, you
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  would realize that this also so is God.
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  Right. The unpleasantness is just part
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  of the necessary divine flow, which dissolves any need for
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  intervention or judgement. But the Christian view
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  fundamentally rejects this quietism.
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  Lewis's famous quote here in response to that excuse is just
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  stark and uncompromising. Don't talk damned nonsense.
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  You really should linger on that phrase because it's so much more
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  than just a witty, heated comeback.
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  He was always so careful with his words.
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  Always. And he provided A footnote to
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  clarify the weight of that statement.
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  That's right. He understood that theological
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  error has serious consequences. He said he meant exactly what he
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  said, that the nonsense is damned.
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  It's under God's curse. And apart from God's grace, it
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  will lead those who believe it to internal death.
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  This isn't just about winning a philosophical debate for Him.
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  It's life and death. It transforms the whole
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  discussion from a cozy philosophical exercise into an
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  urgent existential warming. If you try to make evil a part
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  of God, you fatally misunderstand God's nature.
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  If you accept that suffering or injustice is just God from
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  another point of view, you erase the moral necessity for
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  redemption. You effectively remove the
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  inherent goodness and righteousness from God Himself.
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  You strip him of his character as judge and Redeemer.
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  Yes, and this clarifies why Christianity has to be what he
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  calls a fighting religion. It's not a religion of passive
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  acceptance or resignation. Not at all.
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  Christianity maintains that God made the world space-time
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  colors, animals, vegetables, all of it came out of his head, and
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  it was originally, and it ought to be entirely good.
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  However, it also thinks that a great many things have gone
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  wrong with the world that God made.
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  This isn't some minor bug in the system.
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  No, it's a fundamental disruption of the maker's
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  intent, the fall sin. And because God is righteous and
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  separate and sovereign, he doesn't just tolerate this
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  brokenness. He insists, and insists very
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  loudly on our putting them right again.
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  And that is the moral consequence of the Creator
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  creation distinction, the mandate to seek justice, to heal
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  the sick, to confront sin, because these things are
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  fundamentally not part of God and are contrary to His will.
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  So the Panthea says, accept the flow.
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  And the Christian says fight the flow because the flow is
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  currently corrupted and contrary to the goodwill of the ultimate
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  reality. The Christian is compelled to
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  change the world precisely because God is separate from it
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  and demands its restoration. So if the Christian response to
• 19:37
  evil is to fight it, this leads directly to that ultimate
• 19:41
  ancient question that everyone has to face.
• 19:44
  If a good God made the world, why has it gone wrong in the 1st
• 19:47
  place? And Lewis admitted that for
• 19:49
  years he just refused to listen to the Christian answers.
• 19:52
  He argued it was simpler intellectually to just assume
• 19:55
  the world wasn't made by any intelligent good power at all.
• 19:58
  But the simplification, as he discovered, led him into a
• 20:01
  profound self refuting logical trap.
• 20:04
  This is the genius of his logic. In Mere Christianity.
• 20:07
  He takes us all the way back to the atheist's initial premise
• 20:10
  rejecting God because of injustice, and shows that the
• 20:13
  premise itself relies on a foundation the atheist claims
• 20:16
  doesn't exist. Lewis makes it clear his
• 20:19
  argument against God was never a cold, abstract thing.
• 20:22
  It was deeply moral, deeply emotional.
• 20:25
  It was centered on the fact that the universe seemed so cruel and
• 20:28
  unjust. He wasn't debating physics, he
• 20:31
  was morally offended by what he saw.
• 20:32
  And this is where he turns the whole argument inward.
• 20:34
  He asked this vital self examining question.
• 20:38
  How had he or any other atheist even acquired this idea of just
• 20:43
  and unjust? Where does the standard of
• 20:45
  justice come from if the universe is just a senseless
• 20:48
  accident, a collision of particles with no meaning?
• 20:51
  He introduces the beautiful straight line analogy here.
• 20:53
  Yes, a man doesn't call a line crooked unless he has some prior
• 20:56
  idea of a straight line. What was Lewis comparing the
• 20:59
  universe with when he called it unjust?
• 21:02
  The whole universe, including himself, was supposed to be part
• 21:04
  of this senseless show, yet he found himself in such violent
• 21:08
  reaction against it. It highlights the paradox of the
• 21:10
  moral critic if the universe is just chaos, then our feelings
• 21:14
  about it being cruel or just noise.
• 21:16
  Chemical reactions in the brain, No objective weight.
• 21:20
  He uses that analogy of the fish.
• 21:22
  A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man isn't a
• 21:25
  water animal. A fish wouldn't feel wet.
• 21:28
  A fish being perfectly adapted wouldn't feel out of place.
• 21:32
  Lewis feeling of moral outrage was evidence of being out of
• 21:35
  place in a universe he was judging as crooked.
• 21:38
  The implication for the atheist is just logically devastating.
• 21:42
  If the world is truly senseless from top to bottom, why is the
• 21:47
  specific part of the show that is you, the observer, able to
• 21:50
  spot the flaw? How do you have access to a
• 21:53
  standard that is superior to the thing you're judging?
• 21:56
  Lewis realized he was caught in a logical vice.
• 21:59
  He had two choices about his sense of justice, and neither
• 22:02
  one of them supported his atheism.
• 22:03
  The first choice was he could have just dismissed his idea of
• 22:06
  justice entirely, said it was nothing but a private idea of
• 22:10
  his own. A subjective preference, like
• 22:12
  preferring one flavor of ice cream.
• 22:13
  Exactly. But if he did that, if justice
• 22:15
  was only a private fancy, then his entire argument against God
• 22:19
  just collapsed. Why?
• 22:20
  Because the power and the emotional weight of his argument
• 22:24
  depended on asserting that the world was really unjust, that
• 22:27
  the moral reality was broken, not just that it didn't happen
• 22:31
  to please his private fancies. If justice is subjective, then
• 22:35
  there's no objective ground to condemn the universe.
• 22:38
  And that's the self refuting nature of atheism, as Lewis saw
• 22:41
  it, in the very act of trying to prove that all of reality was
• 22:44
  senseless. No meaning, no God, no objective
• 22:47
  standard he found he was forced to assume that one part of
• 22:51
  reality. His idea of justice?
• 22:53
  Was full of sense. He had to posit an absolute,
• 22:56
  objective moral standard just to condemn the universe for failing
• 23:01
  to meet it. He had to stand outside the
• 23:03
  system to judge the system. He was using the standard
• 23:06
  provided by the very objective moral reality, the straight
• 23:09
  line, whose existence he was simultaneously trying to
• 23:11
  disprove. To say the universe is crooked
• 23:14
  requires the existence of a straight that is external to the
• 23:16
  universe itself and external to his own preferences.
• 23:19
  This leads to his famous conclusion that atheism is too
• 23:22
  simple. It is.
• 23:24
  It tries to simplify the problem of evil by denying the premise
• 23:28
  of an objective good, but it fails because it can't account
• 23:31
  for the internal evidence of the moral law that resides within
• 23:35
  the person denying it. That moral law within us is the
• 23:38
  evidence that the material universe is not all there is.
• 23:41
  And Lewis summarizes this failure so beautifully with the
• 23:45
  darkness analogy. He says if the whole universe
• 23:48
  has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no
• 23:51
  meaning. The very discovery of
• 23:52
  meaninglessness implies a capacity for meaning which has
• 23:56
  to have a source. Just as if there were no light
• 23:59
  in the universe at all, and therefore no creatures with eyes
• 24:02
  to perceive light, we should never know it was dark.
• 24:05
  Dark would be without meaning, it would just be reality.
• 24:08
  The word dark only gets meaning by contrast with light.
• 24:11
  And the word unjust only gets meaning by contrast with
• 24:14
  justice. So the moment Lewis accepted
• 24:16
  that his outrage over injustice was itself a piece of evidence,
• 24:19
  a glimmer of light in the darkness, a reference to a
• 24:22
  straight line, his whole intellectual argument against
• 24:25
  God just crumbled. It did.
• 24:27
  And it left him only with the question of who or but installed
• 24:30
  that objective straight line in his consciousness and why he
• 24:34
  would be separate from the reality that is so obviously
• 24:37
  crooked and. That's the logical destination
• 24:39
  of his journey. He shows that the existence of
• 24:41
  the moral law in the human heart is the first step away from
• 24:44
  materialism. And the character of that moral
• 24:46
  law. A righteous judging side.
• 24:48
  Taking God is what separates Christianity from pantheism.
• 24:52
  We're left only with a God who is real good, separate from
• 24:55
  creation, and who demands moral conformity.
• 24:58
  Lewis has so clearly, and I think excessively shown that the
• 25:01
  source of our moral outrage or our sense of injustice is the
• 25:05
  very thing that proves the universe is not entirely
• 25:08
  senseless. This moral intuition, it forces
• 25:10
  us away from that simple materialist view.
• 25:12
  And then we've seen him distinguish between the general
• 25:15
  belief in a divine being and the crucial difference between a
• 25:18
  righteous creator and an impersonal, indifferent force.
• 25:21
  This deep dive into Lewis it reveals that immediate,
• 25:24
  practical tension that arises when a Christian accepts that
• 25:27
  God is truly good and entirely separate from his creation.
• 25:31
  It's the tension between the world as it is crooked and
• 25:34
  broken, and the world is, it ought to be, straight and
• 25:37
  perfect. And that separation is the
• 25:39
  engine that drives the Christian life, isn't it?
• 25:41
  It is and the theological mandate, the obligation to put
• 25:44
  the world's wrongs right again, to participate in the
• 25:47
  restoration demanded by a righteous God.
• 25:50
  This knowledge isn't just academic.
• 25:51
  It demands a response from us in how we live, how we judge, how
• 25:54
  we act. It really is the ultimate
• 25:56
  intellectual sorting mechanism. Lewis forces you, the listener,
• 26:00
  to abandon the simple paths. Materialism is too simple
• 26:04
  because it can't logically account for the reality of
• 26:06
  morality and justice, and pantheism is too simple because
• 26:09
  it can't take sin, rebellion, and genuine evil seriously.
• 26:13
  You're left only with the complex, difficult, but morally
• 26:16
  coherent path of a righteous Creator whose creation has
• 26:19
  fallen into rebellion. So our sense of justice is the
• 26:23
  straight line we use to judge the universe.
• 26:26
  Our ability to say the world is crooked and cruel, What does
• 26:29
  that say about the ultimate origin of the straight line
• 26:31
  itself? Consider that measure of perfect
• 26:34
  righteousness. If it has to be external to the
• 26:37
  reality we perceive as crooked, and if it must be eternal and
• 26:40
  unchanging, independent of human opinion or the universe itself,
• 26:43
  where must that standard reside? That question directs us
• 26:47
  straight to the nature of God's uncreated holiness, the
• 26:50
  transcendent standard by which all creation is measured.
• 26:53
  The standard must be the standard, and it has to exist
• 26:55
  outside the crooked reality it measures.
• 26:58
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into your
• 27:00
  sources. We look forward to our next
• 27:01
  analysis.