Beginners' Guide: Christian Metaphysics

Subscribe to the Think Podcast (And Please Leave A Review): link.chtbl.com/thinkpodcast What is really real? Socrates famously once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." And it's certainly true that life is more interesting when we take the time to stop and ponder interesting ideas and questions.

Introduction

Socrates famously once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And it’s certainly true that life is more interesting when we take the time to stop and ponder interesting ideas and questions. Questions like, “How do I’m in the right career? or “What is it that causes me to continuously give in to the temptation to do something I know is bad for me?”

Going through life with an inquisitive mind is not only more interesting, it’s also biblical. Proverbs 18:15 says, “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” 

It turns out that God created us to be inquisitive, to seek knowledge, to pursue the truth. 

And yet there are some questions that seem so basic, that we often don’t ask them. We simply assume that the answers are obvious and go about our lives, not really seeing how anyone could think anything differently than we do. 

For example, take the question, “Do I exist?” The answer seems so obvious. But the question has been debated lately, with the arrival of philosopher Nick Bostrom’s Simulation Theory. Some who debate the issue have suggested that we are merely characters in a computer simulation (kind of like Wreck-It Ralph). 

It reminds me of a philosopher who, one day, was approached in his office by one of his students who had been deep in thought. “Teacher,” the student asked him, “I’ve been deep in thought and I’ve reached a crisis. I’m no longer sure that I exist. So please, tell me, do I exist?” The philosopher sat back in his chair, and with a twinkle in his eye replied, “Who wants to know?”

Another question that we may take for granted is the question of prime reality. This question asks, “What is really real?” 

For thousands of years, great thinkers have recognized that the world we see may not be the world as it actually is. Through the ages mankind has sensed that there was something deeper than physical reality. The spiritual, the mental, the emotional--these are realities that the physical world cannot explain, and yet they are realities nonetheless. 

The study of what is really real is called metaphysics. Metaphysics deals with the reality behind the reality that we see. The metaphysical explains (accounts for) the physical. As an analogy, think about your smartphone. What you see on the screen is not the whole story. There is advanced circuitry and a whole network behind that screen. That is like the metaphysical behind the physical. 

And the question of prime reality (metaphysics) is a question that we may take for granted--until we come into contact with someone who believes differently than we do. 

The fact is, each of us has a worldview--a perspective on the world--that governs our thinking. 

Your worldview is the set of presuppositions--of unquestioned beliefs--that you hold, that allow you to make sense of the world. And not all worldviews are created equal. Some explain the world better than others. 

According to recent research, In America, only about 5% of people hold a fully-consistent biblical worldview. If you are a Christian, this means that many of the people in your life are answering life’s most basic questions differently than you are. And that assumes that you yourself are operating out of a completely biblical worldview. So… are you? The way you think about metaphysics can help you answer that question. 

Three Questions for Judging Metaphysics

Now when it comes to the biblical worldview, there is only one answer to what is prime reality. The answer: God. God is the uncreated Creator. He is ultimately real, and he has always been real. Even if nothing else were real--if he had never created Creation, he would still be real. So in the biblical Christian worldview, God is ultimately real; he is prime reality himself. 

Remember that I said not all worldviews are created equal. Some of them describe the world better than others. But what about other worldviews? How should we evaluate them? 

As it turns out, we can use what we know about God to form a framework for judging the metaphysics of other worldviews. As Christians, we get our information about God from the Bible. And how does the Bible describe God? God’s nature is Triune. This means he is Three-in-One. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God (the Athanasian Creed, an ancient summary of the Christian faith, does an excellent job of explaining this. I recommend you look that up). 

So, bound up with God’s nature (and remember that God is prime reality) is the attribute of unity. He is one. So when God created the world, we would expect there to be the concept of unity or oneness baked into it. 

And yet, God is not merely one. He is also three. Three is more than one. Three is diverse. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. So while the nature of God is bound up with oneness, we also see the element of diversity in God. So, too, we would then expect that God’s creation would also exhibit the concept of diversity. 

Finally, in the Bible we see God portrayed not as some impersonal force but as a divine Person. He is not a person like us; he is not limited, or capricious, or fickle. And yet he is personal. He thinks. He speaks. He acts. He loves. These are not attributes of a force (like in Star Wars), but rather the actions of a Person. So in God’s creation, in the universe he created, we would expect to see an element of personality. 

Now the Bible says that God created mankind in his own image. So in some sense, human beings are like God. So then, we would expect to see these attributes of unity, diversity and personality reflected in human beings. 

And that is exactly what we see! 

In humanity, there is unity. This concept of unity allows us to categorize people. We are all one human race. All males are united as males. We can look at a man and say, this man represents the category of manliness in some sense. All females are united in the category of being female. 

In humanity, there is diversity. Not all human beings are the same. We belong to different nationalities and ethnicities. We ourselves are individuals. My thoughts are my own, and yours are your own, and while we may be similar, we are not the same. I’m me, and you’re you. You exist, and I do too. We are diverse. 

And it goes without saying that in humanity there is personality. We humans are persons. We have personality. We know and are known. We are self-aware in a way that is totally unique. Animals are not persons in the sense that we are. Rocks and trees are not persons. Yet human beings are persons. We are made in God’s image. 

So simply by looking at human beings we can see the validity and truth of the biblical metaphysics. 

We looked at the Bible, and we saw that God is characterized by unity, by diversity, and by personality. And we said that his creation would reflect that. And that is exactly what we find. 

These three criteria, then, help us judge other worldviews and their concepts of metaphysics--of prime reality. There is no question that in this world there is unity, diversity, and personality. So any concept metaphysics that is true must account for (provide an explanation for) these three. 

If a worldview fails to account for unity, it fails to account for an element of reality. And that worldview’s metaphysics is false. Likewise, if a worldview fails to account for diversity, it fails. Remember that metaphysics deals with the reality behind what we see, that explains what we see. 

We can judge different metaphysics based on how well they account for (or fails to account for) these three criteria--unity, diversity and personality. Let’s look at a few of them. 

A brief look at three diverse worldviews. 

Naturalism: Unity, yes. But no personality and no diversity. 

Islam: unity and personality, but no diversity. Because there’s no diversity within God. A monad cannot create a diverse universe. 

Polytheism: diversity and personality, but no unity. 

So the biblical worldview accounts for unity, diversity and personality. The ultimate expression of these three concepts is in the person of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus the lynchpin of Christian metaphysics. 

Jesus is one--he is one person. And yet he is also diverse within himself. He is man and he is God. With respect to his humanity he represents creation, in his physical body, in his manhood. And yet with respect to his being the Logos, the divine Son of God, he is eternal and Creator. The person of Christ is a unity of two natures, and theologians have used the term hypostatic union to describe this. Hypostasis meaning personal, individual substance or person, and union meaning that the aspects of his divinity and humanity are perfectly united in communion with one another, so that Jesus is not two persons but one person with a divine and human nature. 

In addition, we see unity and diversity in the role of Jesus in the Trinitarian perichoresis, that is, the lovingly intertwined communion of the three persons of the Godhead, the divine nature. Jesus is one of the divine persons of the Trinity, while also being one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. 

And as to his personality, that goes without saying. The four Gospel accounts and the book of Revelation convey clearly his personality and personhood. Jesus therefore reflects perfectly the unity, diversity, and personality that is essential to God’s being. 

To understand the universe, it is necessary to understand certain things about God. And the best way to get to know God is by getting to know Jesus Christ. This is what the evangelist is getting at in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side —he has revealed him.” See also Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,” and Hebrews 1:3, “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” That verse continues, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” 

So at the heart of Christian metaphysics, the biblical teaching on what is ultimately real, we have Jesus Christ, the God man, who perfectly expresses the nature of God, who sustains the universe by his word, and made purification for sins and currently rules over creation. 

Christian metaphysics, properly viewed, is inseparable from Christian soteriology, from how to be saved. It’s all about Jesus. God is ultimately real. We have sinned against God, and our sin has earned us condemnation from God. It is only through Jesus, the perfect expression of God’s nature, that we can receive grace and forgiveness of sins. Because Jesus the God man atoned for sinners like us. And he alone can unite sinners, whose human unity and intended unity with God has been fractured, together with God and with one another. 

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Articles, Worldview, podcastJoel Settecaseworldview, metaphysics, unity in diversity, unity, diversity, francis schaeffer, joel settecase, john frame, think institute, chicago, apologetics, world viewComment