Stir That Brew of Naturalism

Monday, December 10, 2012 at 10:45AM
Tom Graffagnino

Author, Craig Hawkins once observed that, “Like a drunkard who continually returns to the bottle, so mankind’s bent toward self-deification and creation worship has been irrepressible.”

Of course, we moderns would prefer not to think of ourselves as irrepressibly proud and disobedient “drunks”, stubbornly drawn to destructive spiritual addiction. After all, we sincerely believe that we are far more culturally advanced and enlightened and surely much more highly “evolved” than our unsophisticated, pre-scientific idolatrous predecessors. But, alas…the Bible apparently teaches otherwise.

Despite our advancing knowledge about the world , we today continue to chase after ‘other gods’ just as blindly and tenaciously as any people in any generation or age before us. Rejection and denial of God is still all the rage… just as it has always been. Sinai’s bookend Commandments (i.e., numbers one and ten) are just as relevant and convicting today as ever. And wisdom is still just as elusive.

Today, humankind’s spiritual chariot is being pulled along by the same snorting team of idols that has always drawn the heart of man. The Romans, The Greeks, the Egyptians, the Canaanites and the Babylonians have nothing on us. And sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight to our desert-chariot wandering,…. our wildly misdirected wilderness-chase. The Bible calls this rebellious spiritual condition “iniquity”, the inevitable consequence of our fallen, Adamic sin- nature.

Our chief idol today is “Enlightened Human Reason”, the by-product of the persistent “Imperial Self”. Our Tower of Babel is science (or, more accurately, “Scientism”). Our Creation Myths are propagated, propped up and promoted by the twin philosophical steeds of metaphysical Naturalism and mindless Materialism*. Our proud and relentless Quest, as it has always been throughout recorded human history, is the acquisition of Power and Control, Pleasure, and Immortality through the subjugation and manipulation of nature, the Magnum Opus….the alchemist’s prized “philosopher’s stone”.

Today, the chattering Idol of contemporary Scientism has ventured so far into the Wilderness of Delusion that many of its followers have begun to dismiss even the concept of transcendent Love, Truth, Morality, Beauty and Justice. The cauldron of Naturalism is still being actively stirred…..and it’s metaphysical, magic brew is still being swallowed......

In his book Reason in the Balance, Phillip Johnson writes:

“….humans saw the glory of God in the things that were created but chose to turn their own way and fashion idols of their own making—the latest fashion in idols being the grand metaphysical story of science.”

The apostle Paul, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, put it this way in his letter to the fledgling church in Rome:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools….” (Romans 1:20-22).

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are… those who practice magic arts,…the idolaters….” (Revelation 22:13-15)

* For more thoughts about "mindless Materialism" click here

Article originally appeared on (http://www.withoutexcusecreations.net/).