A lead actor in the film “Second Hand Lions” states in a portion of his “What Every Boy Needs to Know About Being A Man” speech: Sometimes the things which may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most: that everyone is basically good, that good always wins over evil, and that love, true love, never dies.

Religion is the set of guidelines for the practical application of one’s spirituality, or faith. Faith is what ascribes meaning to knowledge. Therefore religion is that act of knowing, understanding it within a context of the meaning of the existence of all things, and acting upon it. If these actions are profitable for the advancement of civilization and the evolution of our species, some might argue that it is good to hold to religious belief regardless of our ability to prove its objective truth.

It is true that to believe in such things causes people to be better citizens. But it is also true that the Apostle Paul states that if Christ did not rise from the dead, then we [Christians] are to be pitied above all else. Doesn’t belief assume that the one who believes it is convinced that it is absolutely true? Even those who state that you cannot ever know if there is a God, believe that this statement is true.

Humans are not objective; they are helplessly subjective beings, so to some extent it can be stated that faith is self-actualizing; that to believe something causes it to be true in the life of a believer pragmatically speaking. And here is the crux: If one is to justify belief pragmatically, then one is condemned to a pragmatic religion.

However, personal, subjective inquiry into the nature of God and the purpose of humanity demands to know who we are, not just how we interact. Isn’t there something terribly wrong with holding to a belief only because it causes you to be a better person? Doesn’t our quest for purpose and meaning in life depend on our identity? If this is the case, wouldn’t the idea that we are deceiving ourselves for the sake of a better life fly in the face of what we are seeking to do: validate ourselves?

The truth is that who we are is a fallen, sinful, human race. This accounts for our desire to be better, to act better, to be fulfilled, because obviously we are hugely lacking if we have all these desires! But in Christ, we are what he is. We can recognize our guilt, our failures, our relational problems, our dysfunctional families, our frustrations, anger, sadness, and grief.

All those things are realities, and the truth which transcends it all is no less real: we are the body of Christ. The point of this statement is not so much to make us better people, but to make us a people to begin with! We were not a people, community, or good, we only were trying to pretend and make ourselves feel like we had some meaning on our own. But Jesus, the real Jesus who lived on this earth and really died and really rose again made us a people for him. He has washed us with his own goodness, perfection. He gives it to us, and that is our true identity. That is the only thing worth believing, because it is true; all else is despair.

By faith we ascribe meaning to knowledge. There is a meaning which is deeper than that of utilitarian purpose. We have what we call the ‘meaning’ of something, that is, what it is ‘meant’ for, but then there’s the meaning of existence, life, the world, which covers everything we know. There is a significance attached to all knowledge that varies from one culture to the next in the minds of individuals. This significance or meaning cannot be observed, measured, or proven through scientific method. It can only be experienced. The experience of holding to a particular understanding of the absolute meaning of life and of all knowledge is called faith.

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The self may be the defined as its ability to reflect upon itself. To conceptualize death is to conceptualize the end of this reflection.

Immortality can be defined as the existence of the self apart from a reflection of the self upon itself with a recognition and experience of its insignificance before God; without a concept of its end.

The human self was created to abide in the life which caused it. It was not created to be autonomous, nor to need to reflect upon itself apart from God. For God created humans to reflect his image. His image is the capacity to give of the self without measure.

So humans were created to give of God’s life without measure or concern to their own well-being for they were abiding, or resting transparently in his providential life.

When humans sinned, they died. Prior to sin, they had the capacity to reflect upon themselves, but they did so only in acknowledgement of the God that filled their selves, and did not experience nor recognize the insignificance of the self before God. They could not conceptualize the end of the reflection of the self, for they conceptualized nothing apart from the sacrificial life-giving life of God in themselves.

Spiritual death occurred when they could no longer reflect upon the self as that which is only what God fills it to be. The reflection of the self as it was in spiritual perfection ceased. There only remains the reflection of the physical self as that which is filled by the now dead human spirit, i.e., it experiences its insignificance.

The physical self now conceptualizes the end of the physical self, and is able to do so, because it has experienced and recognized its insignificance before God. Thus, it conceptualizes the end of the reflection of the physical self upon itself.

However, because of an infusion of the life of God by his characteristic means of self sacrifice, there is once again the concept of the self as that which is filled with what God is. Though this is not complete since the concept of the end of the reflection of the physical self upon itself still remains, there is now the concept of a time when this will not be the case. This is the concept of immortality.

One could not conceptualize immortality unless it is possible in the present. For to have the ability to conceptualize the self without regards to itself apart from God, requires the gift of some measure of this life from God. Otherwise the self sees nothing but the self and is, therefore, dead. This means that either one has immortality in the present or he cannot even conceptualize or desire it as it truly is. He can only experience his nothingness.

If anyone has looked into the issues that seperate various theological camps, then the topic of predestination is likely to be on their radar. I won’t pretend to be able to explain what theologians have debated over the centuries and come no closer to agreeing on, but there are a few guidlines to help us apply to our lives what scripture says about the topic without getting bogged down in the debate its mechanics.

First, the doctrine of predestination–how, when and why God choses people to be saved, and who it is that he choses–is a doctrine given to those of us who believe. There are two perspectives in scripture: one is God’s perspective, which is never explained totally to us, but only enough for our faith in him to be strengthened, and secondly, the perspective of humans.

These two perspectives often seem to contradict eachother. For example, scripture says that “whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but who ever does not believe will not be saved.” This seems to put the salvation of a person in their own hands. Scripture also says “those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” This seems entirely God from start to finish.

The key is to understand the context. The first passage is speaking of people to whom the gospel will be preached. From a human standpoint, whenever the gospel is preached there is one of two responses: either the hearer believes or he doesn’t. It is the ones who believe and are baptized who will be saved.

The second passage is given as an encouragement to people who already believe, but who are discouraged because of the sin in their lives. Paul encourages them (in Romans 8) by telling them of how their salvation is not in how they feel or even the sin they commit from day to day, but in Christ who is their security for all eternity.

Why God predestines, who he predestines, and when he predestines them, are all questions that may remain a mystery for our whole life, but what God has told us about our responsability to believe and obey him, and the words he gives us to encourage us in our relationship with him are no less able to draw us closer to himself.

Science is concerned with observable measurements and qualifications in the physical world. By definition it must therefore be limited. For in coining a term such as ‘infinity’ it states that there is knowledge about the world that is outside of its grasp. Both the infinitely large and the infinitely small indicate that there must be ‘laws’ outside of known natural law that determines the nature of all things. Therefore, science cannot comment concerning miracles other than to say that they cannot be explained by science.

The mystery of the origin of all things, just as it points to the existence of God, also points to the existence of miracle

God’s power is the capacity for him to give of himself.

We cannot define God’s power according to the human definition of power. For humans see power as the capacity to dominate and manipulate. But if the power wants or needs anything from those under his authority, then he admits a lack in himself and thus proves his inferiority to those under his authority. Power is then contradicted.

So power is the capacity to give of the self, for this demonstrates the innate quality of the power, and thus conforms the object of this power to this quality by filling the object with the essence of the power. God is omnipotent: he is an unlimited source of life that gives without measure to his creation so that it might be filled with what he is, and thus conformed to his relationship.