dancpsu's Journal: Christianity you never knew

If you have ever taken a philosophy class, you will come to the "Big 3" questions that everyone answers within their own belief system. While most people seem familiar with Christianity, it seems like most are unfamiliar with the teachings that correspond to the Big 3. The questions are as follows:

• Why are we here?
• Where did we come from?
• Where are we going (after we die)?

In (Protestant) Christianity, the answers to these questions are all found in the Bible. Most people, even having read the Bible, have a difficulty reconciling the different stories, geneologies, and teachings within the Bible. Some even believe that the Old Testament and the New Testament have nothing to do with each other. So first, I will go through a (very) basic Biblical structure.

• Origins and Purpose (Genesis)
• Fall of Man (Genesis)
• Trials of the Faithful Lineage (Old Testament)
• Messianic fulfillment of the Faithful Lineage (Gospels)
• Teachings for the period before the end of the Earth (New Testament)
• Last Days, Afterlife (Revelation)

So the entire structure of the Bible is this lineage leading up to the Messiah, and then the teachings for today, and an epilogue of the last days of the world and afterlife. But the purpose and the center of the Bible is the Messiah, from the fall where he is referred to as Eve's offspring in Gen 3:15, to the end of the Bible where the Messiah says "Come".

Why are we here? (Purpose)

But what is God's purpose for us in all of this? Why have us here, and why go through life on Earth, especially knowing in advance what is going to happen? A Victorian era theory was that God meant to have humanity in the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire famously panned this idea with his satirical works. If God was trying to make everyone happy, He certainly did a poor job. One thing I must make clear, is that God's goal is not to make you happy, but to make you a companion (John 15:15). Now there are certain problems with creating your own companion, the first being that to have a true companion, that person has to have a will of his own. If there are more than one, then there is the possibility that they may hurt each other, and for their choices to have meaning, then the hurt can't simply be taken away, or the choice to hurt has been taken away.

The environment is another problem, since many people are hurt by natural disasters as well. To have separate individuals, there must be a neutral space that can be manipulated by the individuals, but which may also affect the individuals. This also allows for the created individuals to create in the neutral environment as well as serve a medium for communication. But this neutral space may also harm the individuals even if it is made to keep them as comfortable as possible. From a planet wide perspective, the Earth is excellently made to protect humans and keep us in relative comfort.

Where did we come from? (Origins)

The Bible teaches that we all came from Adam and Eve, created as perfect beings in an idealistic garden before being disobedient and tossed out into the grim ugly world in which we now find ourselves. Central to the story of Adam and Eve is the fruit they ate in the act of betraying God. The fruit is a strange thing altogether. In essence it is the ultimate choice against God, but what did it do? The fruit was from the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:9), and the serpent said it would make humans like God (Genesis 3:5), which God agreed with (Genesis 3:22). The phrase "knowledge of good and evil" does not mean what it looks like on the face of it. The words "good and evil" juxtaposed in such a way meant to the ancient Hebrew everything in that realm. Like saying "east and west" to mean everywhere, this would include everything moral. But to withold moral knowledge would be a problem, because then no moral choice could be made. But the word "knowledge" to an ancient Hebrew did not mean simply to know but to have authority over. After all there should be some kind of ultimate authority over right and wrong. It would make things much easier with disputes, court cases, and all sorts of arguments. We try to make authorities with judges and attorneys in the legal system, but it is such a laughably bad attempt and corruption is so prevailent that we expect the bad lawsuits, bad rulings, and money mattering more than justice. God would have authority over morality, but after Adam and Eve ate the fruit they had no greater moral authority than themselves.

So why was the fruit there in the first place? As a completion of God's plan for the companionship of humanity. In order to become a companion of God, one would need to have the kind of moral freedom that the fruit provided. However, one would have to build up some sort of tolerance for the fruit's effects. For Adam and Eve to have the fruit at such an early stage meant that they would be disobedient to the point of not even being able to be in the presence of God. Where Adam had talked with God closely before (Genesis 2:19), he and Eve hid when God was approaching after eating the fruit (Genesis 3:8). Not good for a companion who cannot be in your presence.

Where are we going? (Afterlife)

Humanity after Adam and Eve eat the fruit is in a bad situation. Corruption has gotten into the world, and when people die, their souls are seperate from the sustenance of being near God (Luke 16:23-24). So what did God do about it? He set up a time for a person to reverse the effects of the fruit. This would be the Messiah alluded to in Genesis 3:15. It may seem unfair that only two people had to eat the fruit to ruin it for the rest of humanity, but the other side of one man being able to poison all of humanity by eating the fruit, is that one man is all that is needed to reverse its effects for all humanity (Romans 5:12-15). To get to the Messiah is a bit suspenseful though. From Adam and Eve's kids on, the whole of humanity in the Bible is split between the Faithful and Unfaithful Lineage. In order for a Messiah to come about, the Faithful Lineage needs to survive. God intervening so that the Faithful Lineage doesn't get wiped out makes up most of the stories of the Old Testament.

So once the Messiah comes about, then some choice still needs to exist, a bare minimum required so that one can reject God still, and that is simply the private belief of the individual Christian. It's about as easy as it comes, but it doesn't answer the question of justice. Once you make it into heaven, isn't that all? It turns out the afterlife in Christianity isn't as simple as popular culture would have you believe. You can make it to heaven, and still be judged by what you did in life (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). This effectively closes the loophole of the believer who decided to believe and then murders a bunch of people, or the death row conversion after going on a killing spree.

That said, heaven is not clouds and harps. This is a Babylonian myth and has nothing to do with the Bible. Revelation 21-22 describes a material heaven, much different than depicted in popular culture. Also, the Bible does not teach that we will be spirits without bodies. John 20:27 describes Jesus' resurrected body as one that could be touched. The Bible also does not teach that we will become angels, which are described as separate beings from humans entirely. These are all popular culture beliefs that have been falsely attributed to Christianity.

In Summary

In short, Christianity teaches that humanity started out perfect, but not as companions of God, that Adam and Eve disobeyed God and prevented humanity from becoming His companions through the usurping of His moral authority, and we are here to become companions of God, by a choice provided with by the aid of Jesus, the Messiah (Greek: Christ), so that we may live a material life in a material heaven forever.