Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Jesus putting Peter in charge of Christianity, Matthew 16: 16-18. ESV
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Jesus defining secular humanism for Peter, Matthew 16: 21-23, ESV
This has always been one of the most shocking exchanges in the Bible. Think about it. Jesus puts Peter in charge of his church and 3 verses later calls him Satan!
Jesus is setting up a juxtaposition. It is the same conflict that humankind struggles with today.
On the one hand is the spiritual world revealed to man by God.
On the other hand is the secular world driven by the logic and appetites of mankind.
This conflict has several features:
These two worlds views are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be true. One of them is wrong.
Using physical facts…….using human logic……..we cannot absolutely prove or, for that matter, disprove either of them.
And yet, ultimately, every last one of us must sort this out.
Ultimately, every last one of us must choose between these two worlds views:
A world, both physical and spiritual, created by and ruled by God.
Or
A physical world that just happened and is run by mankind.
One of these explanations is based on revelation…….given by the creator.
One of these explanations is based on things that mankind has figured out.
In each case, there are parts of the explanation that can be supported by hard historical fact.
In each case, there are parts of the explanation that cannot be proven.
And so we fill in the gaps. The Christian fills the gaps with revelations of the spiritual realm given by our creator…..God. The secular humanist fills the gaps with theories and assumptions given to us primarily by science………and this is built on human logic and observation, which is limited to the physical realm. These theories and assumptions have never been proven. These theories and assumptions are not facts…….not yet……possibly never.
And so we are left hanging.
The most important decision in the world…….in our lifetime.
And it hinges on how we weigh two imponderables:
The revelation of the spiritual world given by our creator
Or
The explanation of the physical world based on unproven……likely unprovable……theories and assumptions.
Ultimately, this decision comes down to trust.
You can trust the creator…….or you can trust the theories and assumptions…….given to you by the scientists………the same people who told Columbus that the world was flat…….the same people who told Copernicus that the earth was the center of the universe.
The clock is running.