• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

You are here: Home / Christianity / Why I’m a Christian: The Cosmic Story

Why I’m a Christian: The Cosmic Story

December 13, 2016 by Geoff Leave a Comment

I’ve slowly been writing summaries of my reasons for being a Christian using the three phases of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. This is the third post under pathos (emotions).

When it comes to emotional reasons for being a Christian, this one might seem the most unusual, but here it is: The idea of a cosmos teeming with purpose imbued upon it by an infinite intelligence within which a conflict of temporal and everlasting significance takes place is just damned interesting. Worldviews with cosmic level conflicts this sort can be found in most ancient cultures.[1] That the Bible contains a worldview like those of the ancient shouldn’t astonish us, as it was written and compiled when the majority of people thought this way.

Image result for st. michael trampling satan

But what does astonish me about the Biblical version of the story is that mankind has a purpose other than slavery to the gods (image and likeness to God), that the gods didn’t spring from the world itself (one God made the world and the rest of the gods), and that the conflict in the Biblical story is about good and evil rather than about noisiness, disputes over authority and property, or some other such things.

On an emotional level such a worldview is satisfying. I love stoicism and see it as a powerful philosophical tool for controlling your emotions, gaining self-control, and enduring physical pain. But when the stoics counsel us to see everything which happens as good in itself, it falls flat for me. But the Biblical idea that “the god of this age” or “the ruler of darkness” is somehow in control of the earth or this section of the universe by some result of cosmic moral rebellion makes the evils of humanity much less excusable. Not only so, but imagining that God’s good world is under the temporary rule of a quasi-divine sociopath adds a degree of significance to our actions and some plausible deniability for inexcusable evils that happen for which a universe ruled merely by providence would offer no satisfaction.

Going further, the idea that I and those around me have some deeper purpose for existence than any individual temporal event could reveal is quite appealing. Indeed, it’s ennobling to think that we await the potential restoration of God’s glory to our bodies and minds in a way that is so unimaginably fantastic that ecstatic anticipation is the most reasonable emotional reaction. This constitutes a powerful stimulus to take life seriously, joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, work and rest, etc. Even more so, helping the needy, hurting, and ignored is a rebellion against that great source of misery who prowls like a lion to engorge itself upon the souls of hapless creatures buried in their petty disputes and hatreds. And because I’m a bit of a natural anarchist, the idea of rebelling against a cosmic being gets me going. Now, the flip side to that is that obedience to God is obedience to a greater cosmic being, but we’ll take about that in another post.

Now, I’ve presented no logical arguments here. And in fact somebody could be standing next to me who believes in a purposeless universe watching a tragedy unfold and we could try to help together without ever considering our beliefs on this matter or bringing them up.

This isn’t to say that my belief is untrue or that it doesn’t matter either way. I’m just saying that the belief is part of the symbolic and intellectual scaffolding that makes Christianity emotionally attractive to me.

References

[1] Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict (InterVarsity Press, 1997).

Other Posts

  1. Pathos
    1. Hell
    2. Tribalism
    3. Cosmic Story
    4. Social Life
    5. Happiness
  2. Ethos
    1. The moral credibility of Jesus
    2. The moral credibility of Christianity’s best
    3. The power of Western Civilization
  3. Logos
    1. Why I think God exists
    2. Why I think Jesus was raised

Related Posts:

  • Why I am a Christian by Geoff
  • Rhetoric and Dialectic: The Difference and Why It Matters by Geoff
  • Why I am a Christian: Hell by Geoff

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Christianity

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • 2020 Has Been a Big Year or I Finally Quit
  • Steps to Open a Bible College
  • You Have No Power Here, This is a Library
  • What is true wealth?
  • What’s Wrong with Conservatives?

Recent Comments

  • Sharon on Whether we live or die, Aslan will be our good lord.
  • Alishba lodhi on Effort Habit: Keep the Faculty of Effort Alive in You
  • Geoff on Why is Covetousness Idolatry?
  • Geoff on 2020 Has Been a Big Year or I Finally Quit
  • Kelly Jensen on Why is Covetousness Idolatry?

Archives

  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • May 2013
  • March 2013

Cateories

WordPress · Log in