Lesson 3 Notes – Anthropology: Who is man?

I. Introduction – The Problem of Evil and who is Man?

What is evil? Why is there evil in the world?" This is one of the most fundamental and important questions that every person asks.

• Christians have answers to these questions.
• When the same questions are given back to the world – answers come back empty.
• Here are some examples of the worlds interpretation of evil:
  - Some people chose not to talk about it – ignore it.
  - Doing something bad and feeling good about it.
  - A child going to bed hungry.
  - It’s something natural to our nature.
  - It’s what appears not to be good to other people.


• Everyone acknowledges that evil exists


• Some people say it’s necessary


• The devil has made evil look exciting

A - Primary Doctrine – Laying down the foundation of Anthropology

• The knowledge of Man and God


• Who is Man? Who is God?


• The answers to these two questions form the foundation of every one's worldview.

The nature of Man:

• Self awareness


• Deep search for meaning and purpose


• Sensitive to moral concerns


• Hungry for relationships


• Capable of doing evil

B. The cosmic battle within

• The battle within – Galatians 5:16-17


• Our sinful nature is in constant conflict with God's Spirit – Romans 7:15-25, Romans 6:12, Romans 8:5-14.
  
  The battle over Anthropology >> Truth (reality) vs. Lie (Illusion)
  
  “The Pernicious Lie” >> The lie which says things will be better if we do it our way instead of God's way. That we can get a better deal if we follow our own wisdom and desires than if we live life the way God said it should be lived.
  
  The Biblical view of man:
  His essence >> made in the image of God
  His Moral state >> dualistic
  His Need >> Redemption

II. Man’s Essence
Cataclysmic events have caused various states of man

A. States of man

• Mode 1: Innocent >> Result of creation (Genesis 1:27)
  - God created man in the image of God


• Mode 2: Fallen >> Adam and Eve decided they could get a better deal on their own than doing things God's way (Romans 5:12, Genesis 6:5)
  Hell – If man transitions over to the “death” state at this point, then the state he will go to is “Hell” (Revelation 20:15, Hebrew 9:27)

Descriptions of man in a fallen state: Evil, Dead, Blind, Deaf, Lost, Rebellious, Without hope, Haters of God, Desperately wicked, Children of the devil

• Mode 3: Redeemed >> Revelation 5:9
  Glorified – We will be raised in a new spiritual body >> we call it “being glorified” (1 Corinthians 15:42)

Descriptions of the new man: The redeemed, Saints, Priests, Called-out ones, People of God, A holy nation, Children of God, Sons of God, Beloved, Born from above

B. Dualistic or Monistic – Both flesh and spirit or purely material?

• Man still bears the “Image of God” in the fallen state


• We still carry and bear our sinful nature in our redeemed state


• We must live by the Spirit of God to avoid living in our sinful nature


• As believers, we are wrestling with this issue >> to live with our sinful nature (Romans 7:15, 18-20)


• his does not absolve us from responsibility

C. Naturalistic Philosophy Implications – No gods or purposive forces

• Corliss Lamont: Nothing exists out of the box


• Natural Man >> material beast


• We are “cause & effect machines” in the box Implications: No purpose beyond himself; No foundation for ethics; No Free will; No life after death; No ultimate meaning in life >> Dr. William Provine


• Paul Kurtz – The humanist alternative: “If man is a product of evolution, one species among others, in a universe without purpose, then man’s option is to live for himself.”
  Science >> looking for the answer in the box.


• Haeckel’s Embryos – Fabricated drawings to present evidence for evolution.


• Ingrid Newkirk (co-founder of PETA) –

animal rights activist: "A rat, is a pig is dog, is a boy”

Should we be more concerned about insects? - Activist, Pentti Linkola of the Finnish Green Party says he has more sympathy for threatened insect species than for children dying of hunger in Africa."

Clarence Darrow >> The purpose of Man – to wiggle in life: “The purpose of man is like the the purpose of the pollywog -- to wiggle along as far as he can without dying; or, to hang to life until death takes him.”

Should we be surprised by how so many people are checking out of life?

The leading cause of women showing up in the ER >> Suicide (for men in the UK, it’s second).

III. Man’s Moral State and Man’s Needs

A. Abraham Maslow – Hierarchy of Needs

• Man’s ultimate objective is:
  a. Self Actualization
  b. Getting in touch with your inner nature
  c. Do what your inner desires want you to do
  d. Follow your desires


• What a Pernicious lie!!!

B. Basically Good or sinful

• Depravity of Man


• Man’s propensity for evil


• Children are both the promise and the threat of the future.
  The self-proclaimed “BTK killer” He confessed in 2005 to serial killing

C. Carl Rogers: Influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology.

• His quote: “I do not find that evil is inherent in human nature”

D. Scriptural Truth

• Put to death your earthly nature – Romans 8:13, Colossians 3:5-10


• If you live according to the sinful nature – you will die.


• Our inner desires will lead us to death.


• Self actualizing humanity is dangerous


• IMAGO DEO vs. IMAGO Goo


• RC Sproul's Comments (video)

IV. If evil is not inherent in man, then where does evil come from?

A. Abraham Maslow – “Sick people are made by a sick culture…”

• Christianity restricts and suppresses self-actualization


• Christians are the problem


• The one we serve is the problem

B. Carl Rogers – “…experience leads me to believe that it is cultural influences which are the major factor in our evil behaviors.”

• If man is instinctively good, and it doesn’t come from human nature, then where does evil come from?


• They don’t have the answers


• They don’t even have the ethical language

C. Social Institutions and authority structures are blamed for man’s evil actions

• We currently live in a culture of blame


• Victim mentality – If I am basically good, then anything bad that happens to me must be caused by someone or something outside of me. I will always find someone or something to blame for my troubles or situation.


• That is why today we see in our culture so many social and political activists


• This provides basis for understanding the battleground over social Institutions today

V. Why should “evil” bother someone with a secular worldview?

The question of evil is more difficult for them than us.

• It’s survival of the fittest world


• We are products of the “dog-eat-dog” world


• The mighty are responsible of destroying the weak

Social institutions are the bad guys for the secular world >> oppression with authority is the cause of evil.

Recommended reading >> Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that makes the underclass
By Theodore Dalrymple.

• Doing what you like is not always a virtue.


• "You don't need to find yourself. You need to lose yourself. You need to have something which transcends yourself, in order to make your life meaningful." - Theodore Dalrymple Video

Summary:
"We are the problem."
Evil, to put it plainly, comes from you and me - not from "civilization," "society," or the "chains and shackles of religion." Man made the unfortunate choice to violate his proper relationship with God - not because the devil forced him to do so, but because he freely elected, under the influence of temptation, to follow an analogous course of self-deification.

Economy already Stimualted - Sales rose in January

There are signs that the economy is already stabilizing before the Stimulus Package gets signed by the President. January Retail Sales Post biggest Increase in 14 months. Is this a glimmer of hope?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

BBandT Capital Markets Retail Analyst, Andy Wolf says that in addition to increase of retail sales, gasoline, cars and car parts sales have also rebounded in the month of January.
The Super Markets, Dollar Stores, Mass Merchandisers and Big Buck Discounters are doing the best so far.

The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009

Will a big-government, trillion dollar spending stimulus package raise the economy to a higher level of growth, or will it make it worse-off than it is today?

The "Read the Stimulus" website is an online tool designed to shine some light on the Congressional Prokfest.

Is spending money the solution to our problems?

Transition policy experts talk about President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan -- why it's necessary and how it will work:

Dan Mitchell has a video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explaining the folly of Barack Obama’s stimulus plan:

In Summary:
Government cannot create jobs. It can only shift jobs from one part of the economy to the other.
Government can spend only what it has taxed or borrowed away from the public, it creates no new demand but merely redirects it. And getting money from Uncle Sam doesn't necessarily give anyone the incentive to work more, produce more or earn more income.

According to analysts, only 5 percent of the $819 billion measure will go towards highway, mass transit, and rail projects:

Stimulus, Illustrated Part I

Stimulus, Illustrated - Part II

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on the new “savior-based economy”:

Timeline:
January 28th, 2009 - The House passed the $819 billion economic stimulus bill with no Republican support. The measure passed 244 to 188, with 11 Democrats and 177 Republicans voting against it. Only 12% of the bill has any actual stimulus value, and it comes too slowly to help. The rest is filled mostly with historical Democratic spending priorities for government like family planning, education spending, and poverty programs, which should have been handled through normal appropriations and not emergency economic stimulus spending, which it clearly is not.

February 9th, 2009 - The Stimulus cloture invoked a 61-36 vote, advancing toward passage in the Senate. Only three Republicans voted with Democratic majority: Senators Collins, Snowe and Spector joined the 58-member Democratic caucus to invoke cloture.

On February 13, 2009 at 2:24 p.m., the bill was passed by the House with 246 Yeas and 183 Nays. No Republicans in the House voted for the bill. At 10:48 p.m., the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 60-38, with all Democrats and Independents voting for the bill along with three Republicans.
The 1,071 page Conference Report with final handwritten provisions was made available to the public late Friday. Very few, if any, lawmakers read the final version before their vote was cast.

Hidden Provisions added that would not provide job creation or economic growth:

• $650 million for digital television converter box coupons
• $300 million for electric quasi-golf carts (NY Post)
• $1 billion for Amtrak, which hasn't been profitable in half a century (WSJ)
• $400 million for global warming research by NASA scientists (Real Clear Politics)
• $2.2 billion for carbon capture research
• $75 million for smoking cessation programs (MichelleMalkin)
• $335 million for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (WashingtonTimes)
• $20 billion to hasten depreciation and write-off for equipment
• $209 million for work on deferred maintenance at Agricultural Research Service facilities
• $245 million for maintaining and modernizing the IT system of the Farm Service Agency
• $1 billion for "Periodic Censuses and Programs"
• $140 million for "climate data modeling"
• $600 million to buy and lease government plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles
• $1.2 billion in grants to states for youth summer jobs programs and other activities
• $600 million for "preparations" for socialized medicine (Bloomberg, FoxNews video)
• $6 billion for energy efficiency projects on government buildings
• $4.4 billion allocation for "smart" technologies, which includes power monitors ("smart meters")
• $8 billion to construct high-speed rail lines (Associated Press)

Other Sources regarding the stmulus package proposal:

'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years (Steve Moore - WSJ)

The Job-Destroying Stimulus Bill (The Club for Growth)

Buyers' Remorse?

One of the mothers who lost her son on the U.S.S. Cole, gave an interview on Fox News.
She declined the White House Invitation to meet with Obama. (She also, voted for him and says in the interview that she made a mistake in doing so). The President is planning to release the Cole bombing mastermind Al-Nashiri, Killing 17 American sailors.

Harry Reid: Paying income tax in America is Voluntary

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid maintains that paying income tax is voluntary in the U.S.
He's obviously playing with words. But then again... he is a politician.
Exit Question: Is our tax system really a voluntary system or does the IRS rely on "voluntary compliance"?

Obama's Campaign Promise: To be ethical and transparent

President Obama is losing credibility on his campaign promise to the American people: To have the most ethical, open and transparent Administration ever...
He needs to stop offering high-level positions to individuals whom the American people do not trust.

Here you have Obama's cabinet picks controversies:



New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson
Secretary of Commerce nominee, Bill Richardson was forced to withdraw his name from the position due to an ongoing investigation into a company that has done business with his state.

Timothy Geithner
He admitted that he had failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal self-employment taxes while working for the International Monetary Fund despite having signed paperwork acknowledging the obligation. The President and Senate Democrats dismissed this wrong-doing by calling it a "few little hiccups" and an "honest mistake" and gave him the job of Treasury Secretary.

Nancy Killefer
She failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help, withdrew her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government.

Tom Daschle
He was nominated to be Obama's secretary of health and human services. The New York Times and Senator DeMint called for him to withdraw due to failure to report income.
He was then forced to withdraw after losing the NYT support.

Lesson 2 Notes – Philosophy & Ethics: Says Who?

Truth is not simply an academic concept. The way we think about truth has a direct bearing upon the way we live our lives. What's more, our understanding of right and wrong is directly dependent on our worldview: is the universe God’s creation or a closed cosmic cube?

I. Introduction – Have you been taken captive? - 2 Timothy 2:24-26

A. Scriptural warning against hollow and deceptive philosophy – Colossians 2:8

• A warning addressed to believers
• About deceptive philosophies
• To be taken captive by empty deceit according to human tradition

B. Example of a hallow and deceptive philosophy

• Carl Sagan’s Worldview – “The Cosmos is all there is, or ever was, or will be”
• What is he telling us? >> to believe that matter is the only reality à there is no God
• Everything-including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can all be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena.
• Naturalist - to believe that all can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.
• Nothing has moral, spiritual, or supernatural significance.
• Sagan: “Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries."
• Interpretation >> We are the product of it all
  

C. Assumptive language – A powerful and dangerous form of knowledge

• Dangerous because assumptions are caught and bought without an open conscious, dialogue
• Without discernment, we buy into them without knowing it. If you buy intoa statement, you buy into the underlying assumptions as well. (assumptive truth claims)
• Sagan: “We are made of “star stuff”.
• These underlying claims bombard us from everywhere

D. The Cosmic Cube

• Illustrates the naturalistic worldview belief that there is nothing outside the cosmos; reality is a closed box and all truth must be materially perceived
• The philosophy that has consciously or subconsciously capturedculture that says the material world is all that is, was, or ever will be.
• This philosophical position has severely damaging implications.
• The largeness of the cube somehow allows us to begin to believe that it is big enough to actually say that it’s all there is.
• Nothing exists outside of the box.

E. Biblical presuppositions

• God is and He has revealed himself to us
• General revelation through our world (creation)
• Specific revelation through His word

F. God’s Nature - Transcendent and immanent – He is above and works within the box

• Do you believe in the omnipresence of God?
• If yes, you need to live as such

• We’ve added a 3rd element to the box in order to remove God from the equation.

II. Philosophy – What is it?

A. Webster 1828 definition

• Literally, the love of wisdom.
• The objects of philosophy are to ascertain facts or truth, and the causes of things or their phenomena
• To enlarge our views of God and his works, and to render our knowledge of both practically useful and subservient to human happiness.
• True religion and true philosophy must ultimately arrive at the same principle.

B. Current definition – God has been removed from the discipline of philosophy in today’s culture

• A search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means
• An analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs
• We no longer arrive at the same point >> we are now searching for reality in the box.
• Science dropped-off from philosophy

C. Philosophical Questions – The great quest of philosophers

• What are the universal truths of life?
• What is existence?
• What is the meaning and purpose of life?
• Universal and Particulars (the huge gap in between)

Raphael’s Masterpiece painting: The school of Athens

Aristotle and Plato’s philosophical dilemma – How do we arrive at Truth? How do we make sense of the unity and diversity of our world?

i. Plato believed that you begin with the upper level ideas. He just didn’t knowwhere to get them.

ii. Aristotle believed the only things we have are the particulars and you must begin with them.

iii. Both were trying to find the answers in the box. The philosophers were trying to find the universals but they shut themselves off from the Sourceof ultimate Truth.

D. What has God done for us?

• He gave us (the particulars) the universals so we might understand the Particulars.

E. Hollow and Deceptive Philosophy – Contradictions

• Materialism - matter is the only reality
• Idealism - ideas are the only reality
• Empiricism - knowledge comes from experience
• Rationalism - knowledge is gained by reason without experience
• Naturalism - true knowledge only comes from scientific study
• Determinism - there really is no knowledge, only reaction to stimuli
• Relativism - there are no absolutes
• Mentalist - mind is the true reality and objects exist only as an aspect of the mind’sAwareness
• Mechanism - everything can be explained in terms of physical or biological choices
• Selfishism - self is all that needs to be known
• Subjectivism - knowledge is dependent upon and limited by your own subjectiveExperiences
• Intuitionism - knowledge comes primarily from some kind of inner sense
• Hedonism - pleasure is good, pain is evil. If it feels good do it.

III. Postmodernism

Cluster of philosophies with the underlying assumption that no one worldview or belief system (metanarrative) can claim to be the truth, which often results in relativistic thinking and the use of language as a power play.

A. What is Right? What is wrong?

• Ethical implications of postmodernism
• There is no basis for ethical standards or ethical language in a naturalistic worldview
• Can you live in a world like that?
• It’s not possible to live in a world where nothing is real.
• Who makes the rules?
• Examples of what people say – People should do the right thing because:
  i. my parents told me so
  ii. man will either be governed by force or by his own heart
  iii. if you feel guilty, then that is wrong
  iv. there is no set doctrine
  v. it’s good for society
  vi. it makes people feel better about themselves (good mental health)
  vii. it prevents people from getting hurt
  viii. there must be laws or else anarchy

B. Might Makes Right

• Plato’s Question – “Is an act right because God said it, or did God know it was right and told us about it?”
• His laws are an expression of His nature
• William of Ockham: “Whatever God wills must be done simply because He says so. If God had wanted; He could have ordered men to obey the opposite of the TenCommandments. Even now, He can rescind those laws and will their opposition.”
• This is wrong because it implies that God can change.
• Why is lying wrong? >> Lying is wrong because it’s counter to the nature of God and His character. à God is the ultimate source of Truth.
• If might makes right à what about the minority? >> A lot of people would be oppressed and crushed.
  

C. Naturalistic philosophy implications

• Darwin’s views in non-assumptive language
• There’s no foundation for ethics
• Naturalism: It cannot explain ultimate meaning so it resorts to proximate or relative meaning.

D. Statistical Ethics – Our culture determines ethics through normalcy and survey data

• R. C. Sproul: “Morality looks at the verb ‘is’. Ethics looks at the word ‘ought’.The distinction has been obscured in our day. People use the term‘morality’ and ethics as synonyms. That leads to statistical morality.We go around the nation seeing what people are doing, how manyPeople are cheating on their spouses.”
• Morality vs. Ethics >> this distinction has gone obscure
• Good is determined by what is instead of what ought to be.
• Normal is Good
• Crisis of the loss of ethics
  

IV. Worldview

A. Formal worldview vs. personal worldview

What is your world view?

Formal world views carry a comprehensive set of truth claims

Our worldview drives how we think, act, and feel – What we really believe

B. Consequences of a non-biblical worldview

• We buy the lies and conform to the world
• Only 9% of Evangelical Christians have a biblical world view
• Lack of a personal, biblical worldview in America – We fail to see Christianity as a worldview that governs every area of life.
• We live in a society of anti-intellect, anti-mind (we become lazy thinkers)

V. Conclusion and Solution

C. Renewing of the Mind – Metamorphoo

• Romans 12:2 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
• A new mind brings a new heart >> when the mind changes, the life changes also.
• We must seek to be “metamorphed’
• This is the primary goal of The Truth Project: for individuals to be transformed into the likeness of Christ by gazing on the face of God. This process is not easy and we often struggle with God’s Truth claims in the “cocoon.”