13 The story of reality

Common sense tells us that our world is a mixture of good and bad. It is an amazing place. Humans have amazing abilities and do many good things. But our nightly news shows us the world is also full of disasters and wickedness. Good news items are rare. Nobody can argue that we live in a perfect world.

Why is the world like this? It is the role of a worldview to answer this question – to explain reality, warts and all.

A worldview can be likened to a story of the way the world is, the way it was and the way we believe it can become. Every good story has four parts. It has a beginning (part 1), and then something goes wrong (part 2). The longest part of most stories tells how the wrong gets fixed (part 3) and that brings a final resolution (part 4).

All these characteristics determine how the rest of the story unfolds. The Christian worldview fits this four part model; its four parts are creation, fall, redemption and restoration

Islam is a 2 part story: of creation and a final accounting, It explains evil as a failure to obey God’s will and considers not being a Muslim the greatest evil. Some adherents to Islam therefore argue that killing non-Muslims is a good thing. We can know God’s will through the Koran but little of His character apart from His greatness and compassionate.

Atheism is a 1 part story. There is no eternal creator, so we really are quite alone in the universe without any sense of purpose (no redemption or restoration). Atheists cannot explain how something goes wrong when there is no designer and therefore no right way in the first place (no fall).

The Eastern way of thinking is also a 1 part story, though some forms teach reincarnation as a kind of second part. Most say we are all part of the divine, equally with the rest of nature. All of nature should be worshipped as such. This is also at the heart of the western green movement. Most forms see matter as evil and non-material reality as good.

In the Christian story, the universe was made by a person who always existed. It was designed for his purpose. The universe is not eternal but God is. Therefore the world does not revolve around humans, God is the main actor. This has implications, we fit into God’s plan or we become awkward misfits. God made it, so it is his. Humans don’t have the right to do what they want. God made us to love him. But God is distinct and separate from his creation.

The wonderful truth of this is that the universe continues to be controlled by some One, not some thing. We are not abandoned to the fates or to the blind and brutal forces of the natural world. Instead, we have a powerful King carefully watching over us.