Why You Need to Understand the Bible, Poythress on Evolution and Consciousness, and a Question About Life’s Purpose

Welcome back to The Think Institute’s Weekly Newsletter. Each Friday, you and 1400+ other subscribers get an idea from me, a quote from somebody else, and something to think about. I hope it makes you think, and if you enjoy this, please feel free to pass it on to a friend. Feel like perusing the archives? Access all the back issues for free right here: https://thethink.institute/archives

AN IDEA FROM ME

Many Christians leave biblical understanding up to their pastors and elders, but this should not be the case. Yes, pastors do have a responsibility to teach us the biblical worldview, absolutely. But pastors don’t follow us around during the week. During your day, during your week, you are interacting with all kinds of people who do not know what God’s word teaches. They don’t know how to navigate the world according to biblical principles. They don’t know the hope that comes from knowing Jesus christ. And again, you might be the only exposure that somebody like that gets to biblical truth. So that means you need to understand the Bible. You need to know what it teaches. You need to know how it all points to Jesus christ. You need to know how it applies to everyday life. This is something that you and I need to know and need to become better able to do.

—What a Biblical Worldview ACTUALLY Looks Like (premiering at 8 p.m. on Friday, September 20). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7mE6_02YaQ 

A QUOTE FROM SOMEBODY ELSE

Ironically, severe difficulties for scientific explanation arise not in a Christian approach, but in an atheistic approach. How? Most forms of modern atheism say that human beings arose by mindless evolution from random motions of atoms and molecules. According to these conceptions, we are a cosmic accident. Our origin is thoroughly impersonal. There is no personal plan from God. There is no special reason for expecting that human beings with their distinctly personal qualities would arise from the evolutionary goo. In the end, we are just blobs of goo. We just happen to have some peculiar and unaccountable abilities to be conscious and to think about truth.

But then can we trust our own minds? All that an atheistic theory of evolution requires is that we would be fit to survive. It cannot guarantee that our consciousness makes any difference (because survival is all about the proper firing of neurons, not consciousness). So there is no reason to believe that our minds are in contact with the truth. And if that is so, there is no reason to believe that the theory of evolution, which is a product of our minds, is in contact with the truth. The theory of evolution fails to provide a basis for believing that it is true.

—Dr. Vern Poythress, “Does Science Really Contradict Scripture? Eleven Principles for Apparent Tensions”. This article was featured in the ThinkSquad Facebook group this week. Are you in the ThinkSquad? You can try it out here: https://facebook.com/groups/thinksquad.  

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Does everyone’s life have a specific purpose? How important is it to find yours? Have you?

(N.B. This was one of the questions we discussed in last night’s Spirited Discourse Meetup. Would you like to join us for one in the future? Join the Meetup so you don’t miss any updates: https://meetup.com/thethinkinstitute.)

Reply in the next seven days, and I will write you back. 

In Christ, 

Joel Settecase

President, The Think Institute

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