Asking For One Thing, Pursuing Another

I often ask myself what it is that people really want.

I first noticed a disparity between what people say they want and what they actually pursue years ago when I was a single young man chasing single young women. I would inquire of women what they were looking for in a man. Most often they would give some warm fuzzy answer about an ideal man being sensitive and tender among other similar qualities. The problem was that they would invariable chase the “bad” boys. I fit the bill for what they said they wanted, but they pursued men who were almost the exact opposite.

Either they didn’t know what they wanted or they were intentionally misrepresenting their true desires because they were ashamed of their true desires… or both. For myself, I went through a period of rebellion. Before this period in my life, some girls would consider me as a candidate for their affections. This never lasted because what they thought they wanted wasn’t what they really wanted. Usually they would break it off with me with the words, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Only after I went through my rebellious period did I become particularly attractive to women. I was a “bad boy” who was improving and still needed some work. I’m sure this was how I hooked my wife.

Most women like a do-it-yourself fixer-upper that they can train. No one – not even men – want someone who is perfect. Because down deep, we all know that we are not perfect. How can we stand to be partnered with someone who is?

We feel great value when we can make a difference in someone else’s life and that’s not possible when that person it too perfect to need someone else to make a difference in their life. It’s also endearing when someone else finds value in making a difference in your life.

The observation doesn’t stop there.

What do you suppose homosexual activists want? What purpose does it serve to codify explicit permission for homosexual relationships when people generally leave homosexuals alone these days?

What do you suppose today’s black civil rights activists want when laws today ensure equal (or better-than-equal) treatment in every civil venue?

Do either of these groups of people really only want to be left alone to be free to do whatever they want to do without harassment? They already have that and yet they aren’t satisfied.

What they want is not merely for public acceptance, but individual acceptance. They want it illegal to harbor anything against them for being homosexual or for being black. To be sure, no one who knows me would accuse me of being afraid of homosexuality or for being racist. But it’s unreasonable to force people to be so kind.

People accuse Christianity of trying to force morality on others when authentic Christianity is explicitly non-compulsory. On the other hand homosexual activists, today’s black civil rights activists, and even atheistic or secular activists seek to force not only their morality, but their beliefs on others as a matter of law.

Why?

Children act out in whatever ways promise to draw the attention they need. What I’ve learned is that although the body is grown and the intellect developed, people never lose the emotional needs they had when they were children. Unmet needs often result in a diminishment of self-worth reinforced by the fact that we are sinners and at least subconsciously realize the fact. This generates cognitive restlessness that causes the mind to develop logical conflicts to explain such internal discord.

Christianity can be non-compulsory because value is given to Christians by Christ that is not contingent on our behavior. Rather, we desire to obey God because we have been freed from the internal conflict of our own sin. But for non-Christians, there is no such imputation of value.

First, people should be free to believe what they want, like what they want, hate what they want and carry out their lives as they want. What they shouldn’t be able to do is infringe on others’ capacity for the same. Inasmuch as we are an integrated society, some of our self-harming behaviors and beliefs affect society negatively. In general, these align with basic Judeo-Christian principles of morality. So it’s easy to vilify Christians in America as trying to push our morality through legislation. But good spirituality cannot be legislated. There are people who hate other people irrationally and no one is immune to being hated. Three words of advice when dealing with such people: get over it.

Second, many of our internal conflicts are perpetuated in much ignorance. For example, there were factors surrounding the Civil War besides slavery that are rarely discussed or taught. Darkness_Weaves may correct me on this, but the North was no particular friend to slaves and the South was no particular enemy. Check out these quotes regarding slavery:

"I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable," and, “If I could unite the nation without freeing a slave I would.” -Abraham Lincoln

“So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained.” –Robert E. Lee

That sounds backwards, but it’s not. So, it may be supposed that educating people will help them except that people cannot be forced to learn. But the effort is necessary. Here’s another example:

What do Christians really want with various preferred styles of music on Sunday morning?

Just a few days ago I was approached for the third time with someone from another church offering me a job as a music minister in a church that wants to change their music format on Sunday morning. My first question, as always, is, “Why?”

The answer I got this time is, “Contemporary music is the future.” That’s a vague answer.

Then the fellow continued, “There may be a little bit of a battle because the older folks want to stay with the older the music, but we need to get the younger folks in church and they want the newer music.”

Well, at least he was honest about what he wanted, but his approach is backward. My answer is that first there should be no battle. If the older folks know the younger folks yearn to worship in a style that is meaningful to them, then they should rejoice. But the younger folks should understand that the older folks yearn to worship in a style that’s meaningful to them.

But this begs the question that everyone would be spiritually mature enough to have these considerations. The fact is that worship starts in the Bible, not the hymnal. It is lead from the pulpit and followed in the music. It comes from the understanding that worship is not about the music or our preferences, it’s about our inclination toward God and this understanding comes by educating the congregation spiritually. You can’t make them understand, but you must give them this spiritual meat to chew on.

Otherwise, a church subjected to new music will founder in ignorance and spiritual immaturity. The difference is whether people want to have their preferences satiated or whether they want to glorify God in unity. What is their greatest desire? For, they may claim to desire to worship God, but their hearts may be on their own comfort instead.

Characteristics of Someone Who Desires Truth

Handling truth in a community of believers means that individuals who earnestly desire to know God share certain characteristics.

1. The person who desires to know the truth believes that what he believes to be true is actually true. As I have covered in a previous post, many people often argue for what they believe with a contrived set of presuppositions. They believe what they believe for a different set of reasons than they say they believe it. The reason is because down deep, they realize that the real reason they believe it isn’t good enough. This means that they know that what they believe isn’t trustworthy. They know that it’s not true.

When someone who desires to know the truth and offers a different argument at some point from the real reason he believes it to be true, then if his belief is indeed true, the two reasons for believing will be validated and compliment one another. Both can be argued.

Therefore, if someone desires to know the truth and discovers it, he will contend for it with certainty.

2. Despite the fact that someone who desires to know the truth can believe his beliefs to be true, he understands that his beliefs may be erroneous.

3. If the first two characteristics are true, then he will desire to have his beliefs challenged. To be certain of the truth is imperative to the believer. If what he believes to be true can be contended, then he will make the best argument he can for it. However, he always hopes to have a stronger argument and desires his beliefs to be challenged. If his arguments fail, then either his arguments weren’t good enough or his belief is in error. Since truth comes from the Creator, then even the simplest believer has arguments accessible to him that cannot be refuted. What good is a revelation otherwise?

4. If the first three characteristics are true, then he will be willing to change his beliefs when he discovers that they are in error. If we continue to grow, then we grow through refinement or correction. An investigation of the difference is perhaps fodder for some future article, but the point is that we grow spiritually because we currently lack understanding in some area. If we are to grow, then we must be willing to give up a false or less-refined understanding for a better one.


These characteristics define a process through which beliefs are refined and the truth made more certain. If this happens, then we continue to grow in truth. Therefore, earnestly seek to know the truth.

Desiring Truth in Community

For meeting our material needs, it is beneficial to have community. It is possible for someone to live completely alone until he dies caring for himself until he can no longer care for himself. At that point, he dies. He can prolong his life if he has others to share in the tasks of meeting material needs communally. This is certainly true if he has contributed to the upbringing of progeny who can tend to his needs when he becomes unable to tend to his own.

Inasmuch as believing eternal truths is a spiritual need, we need community to challenge and reinforce these beliefs. The reason is obvious when we talk to others. We typically don't believe the same things to be true. Opposing truths cannot both be true and some truths only appear to oppose one another. There are truths that are more easily discerned than others and other truths that are not easily discerned.

This is a fallen world, which is apparent: Just look at the news, drive down the interstate, go to the store or just live with someone else for a day. Being in a fallen world, we are out of communion with our Creator. Therefore, we live in a world filled with false perceptions if not downright lies. In order to make Himself sure to us, such a Creator, desiring to reveal Himself to us, would make a revelation sure. Merely appearing at one point in time or another before a certain number of people demonstrates no continuity for people who only live a short time. What revelation would bear the mark of our Creator so we could know it?

This revelation would not come to merely one person, author or prophet, but many. It would be well-documented, the writing of which is firmly established in the history it contains. It would contain specific, verifiable prophecies. Most remarkably, it would be accessible to a large number of people for public dissemination, apprehension and discussion. This is the Christian Bible.

The argument is often made that we all tend to disagree with the theology it contains: how, therefore, can we say it contains any revelation since we cannot agree on what the revelation contains? The problem with this argument is that it fails to take into consideration our fallen state. None of us get it completely accurately because the object of truth, our Creator and Savior, is rather beyond our comprehension at many points. It's like a fish trying to discover the topside of a boat by only being able to investigate that which is apparent below the surface of the water. Those of us who earnestly desire to know the truth agree with what has been shown to us (although we have trouble with "propeller" issues such as Reformed theology). We know that the boat can be trusted to float.

You see, no one of us has a corner on the truth. We need each other to help develop a more sure understanding. This must be a continuing process as we mature and die and younger believers are raised up. The truth comes from our Creator, but our discernment requires us to challenge each other.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) appears to be having an issue currently with a resurgence of Calvinism. This typically refers only to Calvin's soteriology, often as summarized by the Synod of Dort and, for the purposes of Southern Baptists, some of the founding documents of the SBC. The SBC started out rather Calvinistic, but the infusion of strains of existentialism into the pop philosophy of western culture bred a gradual change toward libertarian free will. The resurgence has been met with some vitriol among non-Calvinists to the extent that at least one otherwise good pastor was removed for no other reason than the church discovered that he was a Calvinist. The debate has been spirited and some from both sides have been less than gracious.

Earlier this year many of the more gracious Calvinists got together with non-Calvinists at the Building Bridges Conference to work toward a spirit of unity within the convention. This month some of the more vitriolic non-Calvinists got together at the John 3:16 Conference to encourage division. The one observation I want to make between the two conferences is that Building Bridges welcomed fair presentations from both sides of the issue and the John 3:16 Conference was decidedly one-sided choosing instead to present Calvinism as a straw man. Desiring to believe the truth welcomes fair challenges to our beliefs.

Something that confuses the issue are those who do not earnestly desire the truth, but engage in the debate nonetheless. There are many theologians who do not believe the Bible to be true and yet they argue for the veracity of their own beliefs from passages of the Bible, distorting its clear message as they go. If someone doesn't want to know the truth and argue that the truth cannot be known, one look at these false teachers will give them every excuse they need.

Recently, I had a discussion with a few of my church members. I was exceptional in that I was the only one who had not grown up in a legalistic church. My grandfather had been a Baptist missionary preacher who preached a true gospel but whose churches were often somewhat legalistic. In the course of my spiritual development when I was older, I was taken in by a family of wild legalistic fundamentalists. So I identified in some way with the others in the conversation. One lady said that the one thing she noticed when she first came to our church was how free it was.

We are a moral church, but we're not particularly legalistic. For example, we don't allow groups to conduct dances at the church, but we do have dancing in many of our programs.

Sociologically, groups of people who swing ideologically as a pendulum from one extreme often swing to the other extreme. Yesterday's legalism has generated much of today's liberalism. However, I've noticed that many individuals who leave legalism do so because they have grown spiritually. They keep from legalism the part that's important and leave behind that which is unimportant.

It is good that we are firm in our beliefs. It is not good to be so firm in our beliefs that we cannot change them when we are clearly shown to be in error. It is not good to be so willing to change what we believe that we cannot say we know anything for sure. We know that we will not have full knowledge in this world.

I look at my children ages 12, 9 and 5. They are growing in knowledge. They are nowhere close to understanding all that I currently understand, but I work with them so they can grow. I cannot be indignant with them for not knowing. Too many people I see are indignant when confronted with others who don’t know what they know or who don’t believe as they believe. I cannot condemn a sinner for sinning when the sinner has no conviction that they have sinned. I can and will challenge my fellow sinners according to their understanding and not mine so that they might grow to a good conviction and repent. It is not important immediately that we know all truth.

But the most important thing when seeking the truth as a community is that we all desire to know and believe it.


Next: Characteristics of Someone Who Desires Truth

Desiring Truth

What are our existential needs? We need sustenance. We require food and water to fuel and hydrate our bodies so we can continue to live. We require clothing and shelter to protect us from the harsher characteristics of the elements of this harsh world. That's about it. We don't need anything that doesn't contribute to these base needs.

Of course, these are the rawest existential needs we have. Our bodies can live, but we are more than merely bodies. Naturalists, today's scientific existentialists, explain every other need we have as contributing to these two somehow. For this, the purpose of life is simply to live.

If the purpose of life is simply to live, then it doesn't matter what we believe as long as it contributes positively to meeting our material needs. This is the explanation we hear from the existentialists regarding religious or other such beliefs in a God or any transcendental force of nature that we have developed no devices to test.

Regardless of our beliefs, there is a state of continuity that exists. If I have never heard of the country of Mozambique and it's citizens, it would exist aside from my perception of it. My father is alive. He existed before I conceived of him. The continuity of his existence is beyond my scope of my cognition. Therefore, his life is a truth that does not require me to belive it in order to be true.
I would argue that nothing is true simply because we want it to be true. But that's an argument for some other time.

But if that which is true is true regardless of what we want to believe, then it can be observed that we either want to know the truth so we can believe it accurately or we don't.

As it is, most people are only interested in the truth only as far as it benefits their desires. The way this works is that it can be used to justify behaviors in various situations. For example, it benefits me to believe that green beans are good to eat inasmuch as I end up eating them and am duly nourished. If I don't like green beans although they would duly nourish me if I ate them, then I may choose to believe something about the green beans that is not true in order to justify not eating them. In this respect it benefits my desire not to eat the green beans although I lose the physical benefit of eating them.

The truth is more than merely existential. In this respect, the principle whereby we are interested in the truth only as far as it benefits our desires extends to moral truth. Certain arguments can be made for morals based in natural law. However, if the natural world is established in eternal essence, then morality is not merely natural, but eternal. Therefore, it is rather the Creator that establishes morality, and this in truth. For example, it is good for a man to keep only one wife and to be faithful to her eschewing intimate relations with all others. It doesn't intrinsically benefit such a man with regard to meeting his physical needs to believe this. However, fidelity and commitment in marriage are eternal moral truths. Inasmuch as our Creator has chosen to reveal these truths to us, we can know them.

So believing eternal truths doesn't benefit our material needs, but it benefts our spiritual needs. (Here I make a distinction between spirit, or pneuma, and soul, or psuche, where the soul is anchored in both the spiritual and the physical.) There is no material reason, therefore, to believe an eternal truth to the extent that one would justify behavior on them. The fact that we do is evidence of the eternal and confounds existentialists, who inexplicably believe things to be true that themselves would be classified eternal if they were indeed true.

So, the fact that we desire to believe eternal things to be true is the work of the Spirit of the Creator.


Next: Desiring Truth in Community