Dallas Willard on Our God-Bathed World

I just finished chapter 3 of The Divine Conspiracy called, What Jesus Knew: Our God Bathed World.  It took me days to read because I had to keep reading paragraphs again and again. I have almost the whole chapter underlined (which doesn't help much, admittedly), and I have notes scrawled all over the margins. It was probably one of the most amazing 30 pages or so that I have ever read by an author. There is no way that I can even begin to do it justice in a blog post, so I will just give a short synopsis in this installment of my review.

Reading this chapter, I realized why straight moralism (do this, don't do that - because the Bible says so) is so insufficient in a world where we are bombarded by messages from a secular culture constantly. That culture is in the "advanced stages of what Max Picard described as the 'flight from God'" (90).  There is a whole intellectual framework that supports rebelling against authority and doing what seems right in our own eyes. This past weekend, my wife and I were given tickets to the off-Broadway production of Evita. While watching it, it occurred to me that Eva Peron was being celebrated as a woman who destroyed all the taboos, slept her way to the top, and became a heroine to the people. The other play that I saw at this theatre was Fiddler on the Roof.  It was much better than Evita, but it had the same basic message: tradition is stifling, follow your heart, do what makes you happy. A few years ago, the movie Pleasantville came out with the same message.  Actually, almost every movie, TV show, or play has the message that true happiness is found in following your heart and breaking the status quo. Of course, this can be helpful if the status quo is evil, but we are given no guidance by our culture to know the difference between good and evil, so how do we know what to rebel against? We have all become rebels without a cause. This is why just telling people who are immersed in secular thought to do right because God, the Bible, and the Church says so, is insufficient. We need a deeper understanding of what God is doing in the world. In short, we need to be aware of God's presence all around us. We live in His world.

A part of the pursuit of pleasure that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, are our desperate attempts at transcendence. Deep down, we know that we were created for more than what we are currently experiencing. We know that we are missing out on something that we were intended for, so we struggle to break the bonds of this dull earth and escape into a sense of victory, beauty, uniqueness, and something lasting and permanent.  Eternity is written on our hearts. The Imago Dei upon our souls is still there, even though it is marred. We silently long to be reconnected to what was lost, but because of sin, we take our legitimate desire and sacrifice it at the altar of diversion. The only antidote for this tendency is to become truly “spiritual” through the work of Christ so that we can live in union with the world that God created us for.  Here are Willard’s thoughts:

Because we are spiritual beings, as just explained, it is for our good, individually and collectively, to live our lives in interactive dependence upon God and under his kingdom rule. Every kind of life, from the cabbage to the water buffalo, lives from a certain world that is suited to it. It is called to that world by what it is. There alone is where its well-being lies. Cut off from its special world it languishes and eventually dies.

This is how the call to spirituality comes to us. We ought to be spiritual in every aspect of our lives because our world is the spiritual one.  It is what we are suited to. Thus Paul, from his profound grasp of human existence, counsels us, “To fill your mind with the visible, the ‘flesh,’ is death, but to fill your mind with the spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).

As we increasingly integrate our life into the spiritual world of God, our life increasingly takes on the substance of the eternal. We are destined for a time when our life will be entirely sustained from spiritual realities and no longer dependent in any way upon the physical. Our dying, or “mortal” condition, will have been exchanged for an undying one and death absorbed in victory.

Of course that flatly contradicts the usual human outlook, or what “everyone knows” to be the case. I take this to be a considerable point in its favor. Our “lives of quiet desperation,” in the familiar words of Thoreau, are imposed by hopelessness. We find our world to be one where we hardly count at all, where what we do makes little difference, and where what we really love is unattainable, or certainly is not secure. We become frantic or despairing.

In his book The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley remarks, “Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.” They are relentlessly driven to seek, in H.G. Wells’ phrase, “Doors in the Wall” that entombs them in life.

Huxley was sure that “the urge to escape from selfhood and the environment is in almost everyone almost all the time.” Therefore the need for frequent “chemical vacations from intolerable selfhood and repulsive surrounding” would never change. The human need could only be met, in his view, by discovery of a new drug that would relieve our suffereing species without doing more harm than good in the long run (82,83).                                                 

Of course, Huxley was not a believer, so his remedy is all wrong, but his diagnosis is spot on. What Willard is describing is our unquenchable desire for transcendence. We KNOW that we were created for more than this. We want pleasure and we want it now. There is no soothing the enormous appetites of our soul. We are ravenously hungry for anything that will numb the ache that we have for another world and time. It is almost as if we carry in us a memory of a time when things were better and a subdued hope that one day things might be better still. We try and bring some of that memory and hope into our daily lives through attaining a sense of transcendence through sex, fame, cheering for sports teams that we can experience victory vicariously through, food, wealth, art, and sensual experiences. We all want to transcend our cage like world, but where shall we go? That is the question of our lives.

Fun diversions that seem innocent enough (sports, watching TV, working on the house or the yard, shopping, reading, etc.) can become an enemy to our spiritual walk if we keep getting our need for transcendence met from these good things.  Our life goes out of balance and we find that the voice of God and the ability to see Him at work all around us has been drowned out by the noise of our diversions. We live in a culture that is full of diversion and because of it, we are starving spiritually. We need a reconnection with God through the work of Jesus Christ in all areas of our daily lives.  God is always at work around us. His Kingdom has come in the person and work of Jesus. How can we exchange the presence of God for created things and not be attentive to His voice? Through all of our pleasant diversion that “there is nothing wrong with” we find that our spirits grow dull and we do not long for the things of God. Bible reading is not our desire. Prayer is not eagerly anticipated. Church attendance becomes a chore. Obedience becomes unattainable. Our lives lack power and intimacy with Christ because they have been immersed in the noise of the “good things” that our culture puts before us. Sometimes, we immerse ourselves in rank sin and our break in fellowship with God is even more acute. What is the remedy?

Tim Keller says that “all of life is repentance.” May we engage in daily repentance so that we stay attuned to God in all things. May we forsake every idol and take captive every thought that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. May the eyes of our hearts be enlightened to know the hope to which He has called us – our glorious inheritance in the Saints. We must not forsake the spiritual disciplines that form our soul around the workings of God in our world. May we develop an appetite for Him that causes us to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Our culture of rebellion does not offer us this. It only offers death. Let us choose eternal life in Christ now.

Comments

[Bryan Riley]

Die to our own voice, live to His. As we starve spiritually, we need comfort. Praise God He left us the Comforter. Cry out to Him.

Yes, I've been chewing on this same book for a long time. It's not a quick read.

[Keith Lucas]

Once again I am reminded of my weaknesses and my NEED for Him! Would that my heart, mind and soul cry out as it should. I really appreciate this series. I may not always comment but that is not always the point. Please continue to challenge me with your insight. Thanks, Alan.

[Cal Lord]

I have heard more and more positive comments on Willard and his writing over the last few years. I will have to pick up this book and read it. It sounds very good. And right on the mark!

Cal

[Cal Lord]

I have heard more and more positive comments on Willard and his writing over the last few years. I will have to pick up this book and read it. It sounds very good. And right on the mark!

Cal