My Human Condition

About 5 years ago, I was traveling for business and struck up a conversation with a Vandy divinity professor who was sitting across the aisle. His view of Christianity was so radically different from mine, that our subsequent email conversation really helped me crystallize the basics of what led me to believe the gospel, and how I even define it.

At the time, I was surrounded by Christians, and I knew that was not healthy, so I began praying that God would broaden my horizons. Lately, it's been especially exciting to see how God is answering that prayer -- and how he is using that dialogue from 5 years ago to help me explain my faith today.

Here's the kernel of what I outlined then - and find myself re-iterating now:

Something in me wants to be good and wants the world to be good -- to live in peace and pleasure and beauty, without cruelty or pain, with joy and love. That's what I want.

Something else in me keeps me from being good. I just can't do it. By accident or intent, I screw up daily. I speak out of pride or act in selfishness or you-name-it. Of course the world can't be all good, if I can't even be all good right this second, and I really want to be.

If I am just a material being, why would I want to be something I'm not? Why do we all want to be what we cannot be?

Is there a solution?

I can try to give up, to pursue pleasure and expunge morality from my thoughts, but it won't work. I'll always feel guilty for being bad. Talk to anyone who's tried it.

I can wear myself out convincing myself that I am good enough. But I'll always know better.

I can despair.

Or I can hope -- hope that there is something out there that is "perfect" (i.e. what I want to be), that is capable of what I desire. It must necessarily exist outside of this imperfect world, but to be of any help to me, it would need to have attempted to communicate with this imperfect world (or I'd never know of it). And if it is perfect (exhibiting love and compassion, among other things), and it is communicating with this world, then it must desire to help me.

Which leads to 3 key questions:

1. How would that perfect entity communicate with me?
2. How could that entity help me (make me perfect without corrupting itself with injustice)?
3. Why would it bother?

And 3 responses:

1. In the languages of humanity (a man, words, visuals).
2. By trading my guilt for another's perfection.
3. Because it loves me (possibly because it made me).

Where do I see evidence this isn't just my own wish fulfillment?

a. By observing the rest of creation. (nature)
b. By learning about its interactions with others. (Bible/history/church)
c. By interacting with it myself. (Holy Spirit)

Then I read the Bible, and it fits the human condition like a glove. It explains our experience, gives meaning to life, and offers faith (the ability to be "sure of what we hope for and confident of what we cannot see" Heb 11:1).

It's crude, but this helps me explain one way that I have resonated with the truth of the gospel, particularly to a post-Christian society that often thinks God becoming man sounds one step removed from the tooth fairy.