Blue Space » Blog Archive » And in the end…

11.06.08

And in the end…

One of the curious traits of human nature is our additional attentiveness to the ends of things. If you have ever watched a small child when they first discover a light switch, you will note this human idiosyncrasy in a nearly pure form. Often the child will sit for an inordinate amount of time (a preciously inordinate amount for the tired mother or father) looking at the switch, making it move, and then watching the light illuminate or darken. It is worth noting that never have I seen a child after the first illumination, stop, look at the distance between the light and the switch, and thoroughly investigate what has transpired between the two. No, a normal child seems to focus exclusively on the ends of the cause and effect and take much pleasure in making change over and over and over again.

Likewise, I find it fascinating the gravitation that our minds have toward the ends of time. The chronological ends which I speak of are twofold, the beginning and the end. We dedicate a significant amount of consideration and brain power toward better understanding one event (the beginning) which seemingly has no direct bearing on us and another event (the end) which has a seemingly low likelihood of having an impact upon our lives. A strictly logical analysis would point us clearly toward the fact that only the present (middle of time) has any impact upon our lives and therefore we should focus our attention and minds only upon the present. But oh how our minds wander from the subject at hand! One of the BIG questions of life is why does our mind wander in such a manner? Does our mind wander due to persistent social conditioning to consider such matters? Does our mind wander because it is simply too bored with the present and needs something to do with its spare analytical power? Does our mind wander because we secretly enjoy sabotaging our present existence and therefore prefer not to pay attention to it? Does our mind wander because there is some external force that is actually controlling it? On a strictly logical basis, I have no answer for you. I could create a logical answer, but it would most certainly be flawed with either circular reasoning and / or subjective assumptions.

At this point I could stop my essay and retreat safely to my “middle of time” existence. I am either too much of a fool, too full of myself, or too concerned with the question to let it drop. So for sake of simplification, please allow me to reframe the question. Because our minds do not allow us to easily forget the ends of time, how are we affected?

I would argue that due to this idiosyncrasy/foible/spirituality we are affected in almost every way. This is based upon a belief that how your mind processes the ends of time has a significant impact upon your worldview. By the way, I would argue that your worldview determines which word you chose for the first sentence of this paragraph. Worldview is “the overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world” or “a collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or group.” Amazingly those utilitarian, stoic Germans coined the word as Weltanschauung.

At this point you would be justified to ask, where in the world are you going with this? Well, there are many different ways to go, and perhaps in the future I will deal with more of them, but for now I would specifically like to tackle the end of the world as we know it. Our chronological mindset often brings up the question of how will it all end? I hate to take possible answers to such an important question from science fiction, but science fiction movies do seem to delineate the spectrum of answers rather well. They typically envision a future cataclysmic, horrible existence or a future utopian, enlightened existence. (I suppose a future normal, similar existence probably wouldn’t do well at the box office.) It seems to me that given only personal reasoning your take on the end is likely to be heavily influenced by your own inherent optimism or pessimism. The educated optimist has hope for the human race despite its flaws and often trusts in natural selection to enable us to eventually attain our utopian, enlightened existence. The educated pessimist has fear of the many uncertainties of sustaining life and between the human race’s relative ignorance of the universe we inhabit and the many slight chances of cataclysm on an ongoing basis believes that our ignorance and / or those slight chances will eventually catch up with us and seal our demise. They might even label it an inconvenient truth.

I don’t have confidence in my personal reasoning, and I am aware that I would definitely end up in the pessimist camp. The truth I choose to believe is the Bible. Therefore, I hope that it would be said that my worldview is Biblical. I believe that the Bible teaches that we are heading toward a climactic ending which will begin with an unusual peace and quickly turn into a living hell with many cataclysmic, horrible features. The good news is that after that Jesus Christ returns and exercises his omnipotent power to usher in a completely perfect, enlightened existence for those who remain. At this point let me state clearly that I believe it is a considerable waste of time to focus too much on Biblical prophetic writings and to spend ones life distracted from what Jesus has called you to do. (i.e. You won’t find me wandering around Times Square with a sign that reads THE END IS NEAR.) However, my worldview causes me to envision a falsely perceived upward progression of mankind followed by disastrous consequences. This worldview leaves me skeptical of an inordinate reliance upon man’s progress. Let me also state emphatically that I believe no one knows when the end will happen. I believe this allows for a considerable ebb and flow with regard to mankind’s progression, enlightenment, regression, and ignorance. If you would like to hear the Biblical end of the worldview please read Jesus’ words in Matthew 24.

The main difference between the secular and Biblical end of the worldview is who is in control. The secular optimist worldview believes that the human race is in control of its own destiny. The secular pessimist worldview believes that either the human race will cause its own demise or random chance will lead to our demise or a combination of the two. The Biblical worldview believes that ultimately God is in control of events that will lead to the end of our world.

Author: Joseph Wendel | Permalink | Daily Entries

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 11:42 am and is filed under Daily Entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

John 14:6

And in the end…

Subscribe

More Topics

Contact Info