“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning – the Christian meaning, they insisted – of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.” ― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means
A lack of so-called ‘scientific evidence’ in the existence of the personal God Who spoke is not the true reason why godless Westerners reject belief in Him. Their rejection is due to a desire to live free of the moral constraints God requires. (Psalm 14:1):
“Why is it that man ever chooses to sin? The answer is that man has fallen away from God (and) his whole nature has become perverted and sinful. Man’s whole bias is away from God. By nature he hates God and feels that God is opposed to him. His god is himself…his own abilities and powers and desires (Man) likes and covets the things which God prohibits, and dislikes the things and kind of life to which God calls him. These are no mere dogmatic statements. They are facts (that) alone explain the moral muddle and the ugliness that characterize life to such an extent today. “D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1)
Those who want to escape the guilt and accountability accompanying transgression of Moral Law so as to escape the condemnation of conscience, will habitually ruin or desensitize their conscience through embrace of lies and other deceptions and denial of truth and His existence. In this way they deny their own accountability, and by extension, their own living souls (and the citadel of soul: mind/spirit), free will (ie, it’s not my fault; I couldn’t help myself), plus meaning, and purpose. Thus, having foolishly destroyed themselves, imagine they are enlightened and superior and proceed to ridicule, scoff, jeer, and persecute faithful believers because they prefer darkness (evil deeds) to light. (John 3:19)
The preferences of the wicked remain however, consciously made acts of mind and free will.
The conscience is located in the subconscious mind and is a God-designed recorder of secret thoughts, motives, and actions from youth that serves as a guidance system. The will is located within the conscious mind – also designed by God. The wicked redefine conscience as bad feelings, and the will as causation and triggering:
“The sciences have grown steadily bolder in their claim that all human behavior can be explained through the clockwork laws of cause and effect. This shift in perception is the continuation of an intellectual revolution that began about 150 years ago, when Charles Darwin first published On the Origin of Species. Shortly after Darwin put forth his theory of evolution, his cousin Sir Francis Galton began to draw out the implications: If we have evolved, then mental faculties like intelligence must be hereditary. But we use those faculties—which some people have to a greater degree than others—to make decisions. So our ability to choose our fate is not free, but depends on our biological inheritance.” (There’s No Such Thing As Free Will, Richard Dawkins, May 17, 2016)
The Light came into the world but was not loved by wicked men because it brought consequences from which they recoiled and revolted. They loved sin and their own worldly wisdom, which does not “descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.” (James 3:15) Thus Western sons of disobedience mounted a revolution against the Creator God Who Spoke (John 1) and rejected the atonement of Christ who cleanses and regenerates the heart (spirit/conscience/intellect) of sin through cleansing of conscience and transformation of habitual evil thinking and behavior patterns of old.
The wicked willfully chose the satanic heresies of Darwin (life and universe created from nothing) and Nietzsche (the God Who Spoke is dead) together with satanically dehumanizing ideologies because darkness was the choice they loved and celebrated. (Romans 1:28-32)
In “Rediscovering Holiness,” J.I. Packer tells us that Satan’s strategy is to corrupt, desensitize, and if possible kill our consciences and that ideologies and a conforming church aid him in his goal:
“The relativism, materialism, narcissism, secularism, and hedonism of today’s western world help him mightily toward his goal. His task is made yet simpler by the way in which the world’s moral weaknesses have been taken into the contemporary church.” (1)
God’s Judgment conspicuously reveals the unholy love of the sons of disobedience. (Romans 1:18-25) For the impious man who chooses to reject regeneration but chooses instead annihilation or evolution (purification over time in new flesh/bodies), rather than resurrection God’s Judgment is made upon his or her entire lifetime of habitual choices (recorded in the conscience) as well as on his or her present habitually bad character.
The present bad character is the outcome of a lifetime of habitual thinking, motives, freely made choices, and behaviors consciously and willfully made. Their works over time were evil and their habitual choices, thinking, and behaviors supplied permanence and energy to their ‘love,’ and this reveals its historical antecedent. Thus the judgment of eternal law falls upon them and is made evident in giving them over to ‘uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves ‘(Romans 1:24). The blinding of eye and ear (Matthew 13:10) is the judicial result of their preferred ‘love,” thus, “He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still…” (Revelation 22:11
In the Problem of Pain, CS Lewis said there are only two kinds of people in the end:
“…those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened. “
For all seek Jesus, the Physician of our souls, and confess with their mouth that He is Lord, and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and who humbly confess and repent of their sins will be saved. (Romans 10:9) They shall enter Paradise restored (earth purified by fire and remade):
“In Genesis we see the first Paradise closed. In Revelation we see the new Paradise opened. In Genesis we find the entrance of human sin. In Revelation we see the exclusion of human sin. In Genesis the curse was imposed. In Revelation the curse is removed. In Genesis access to the tree of life was disinherited. In Revelation access to the tree of life is reinherited. In Genesis we see the beginning of sorrow and death. In Revelation we see the end of sorrow and death. In Genesis man’s dominion is broken. In Revelation man’s dominion restored. In Genesis we see the evil triumph of Satan. In Revelation we see the ultimate triumph of the Lamb. In Genesis, God’s walk with man was interrupted. In Revelation, God’s walk with man resumes. In Genesis we see Paradise lost. In Revelation we see Paradise regained.” Steven J. Lawson, Heaven Help Us!
But for all who crave sin without guilt and say to the Lord our God, ‘my will be done’, this present earth that is passing away with its lying, thievery, wars, mob violence, chaos, murder, tyranny, and other evils is the closest they will ever come to Paradise.
1. The Vanishing Conscience, John MacArthur, p. 89; 35
2023© Linda Kimball
Very true. We might say that this shows natural man’s predisposition to anarchy, while spiritual man’s disposition turns toward God Who is the giver of law and order.
Strangely enough, I think it was Marx who predicted the course of events in their natural order. I knew them all long ago but my memory of it is hazy now. He said that Capitalism becomes anarchy, and then anarchy is followed by Socialism. It may be correct because we’re seeing that anarchy occurring, followed by a drive toward Socialism. I wouldn’t doubt that higher political circles are purposely behind that drive to gain power via the anarchists.
The silly anarchists who don’t want to observe God’s laws wind up with cruel tyrants ruling over them… on this earth. In the afterlife, they find themselves residing in a place far removed from God and His Providence where there’s no love, no mercy and no hope.
It’s a ghastly and eternal place for those who refuse God’s mercy in this world.