Finding Purpose Beyond the Cycles of Life

The cyclical view of history, which means simply that history has no definite point of beginning and no definite point of termination. But it simply goes around and around and around in an endless repetition, in a meaningless circle, a vicious circle of insignificance. That's what was understood by the cyclical view of history. [00:04:35]

Friedrich Nietzsche, in the nineteenth century, when he set forth his philosophy of despair called "nihilism" spoke about the "myth of the eternal return," in which he called attention to this same idea of the circle. And he said there are two images from the ancient world fighting for men's intellectual allegiance. [00:05:20]

Competing all of the time with Apollo was the figure of Dionysus. We remember Dionysus, who was connected with Bacchus, the god of the wine. Dionysus was the one who was the god of irrationality, of chaos, the father of the so-called "bacchanalia" or the "Dionysian frenzy," where people would seek to escape the controls of rationality. [00:06:21]

The Hebrew view of history which is linear. The very first statement recorded in the Old Testament stands over against this view of life and this view of history with the words, "In the beginning, God." The whole concept of creation is on a collision course with nihilism, because the concept of creation in Israel makes this affirmation. [00:11:56]

This world and that human life had a starting point not in chaos, not as a cosmic accident, but from a purposeful act of a transcendent, eternal God who starts something that is new. He creates it, He sustains it, and He remains in a position of lordship over the movement of history, as all of history is moving toward an appointed destiny. [00:13:07]

Secularism adopts as its fundamental philosophical idea, this, that all there is, is the saeculum – this world, this time. There is nothing transcendent, there is nothing beyond the sun. Or if there is anything up there, we have no access to it. We cannot know anything about it. That man finds himself imprisoned in life, in the here and in the now. [00:19:27]

That's why revelation is so important. That's why the Bible is saying that we get a message from the other side of the sun, from the One who makes the sun, from the One who stands above the sun and who comes into this world to reveal the news that we are of eternal significance. [00:20:56]

If you consider life only from the perspective of this world and the values of this world, you'll end in despair. I mean, have you ever raised the question, "Why am I doing this?" I remember when I was six years old, and I caught on early. We had to walk to school and the last quarter mile was in front of this great big church. [00:21:09]

I still struggle with that. I mean, it just doesn't seem right. "These six days shalt thou labor and be going through all that…" I said, this just doesn't make sense. I'm spending most of my life doing what I'd rather not be doing. Why am I doing this? Have you ever asked yourself that question? [00:22:44]

The point here is the use of the phrase, "under the sun…under the sun." Let me use this circle again, move it down here and make this the sun. And here we are, we live life under the sun. The Hebrew expression "under the sun" means "from a perspective of this world only." Here's the ancient response to secularism. [00:18:07]

The Bible is not saying that the Word of God declares that everything is futile and everything is vain and that that there's nothing new under the sun. I mean, the whole Bible is pointing towards the good news, something dramatically new, and it talks about the newness of life, and you can have a new life and all that. [00:18:47]

The whole battle between Christianity and secular humanism is between this, the circle and the line. Back in the fifties, Edward J. Carnell out of Fuller seminary wrote a book in which he said, "Modern man defines himself in these categories, that man is conceived now as a grown-up germ who is sitting on one wheel…one cog of one wheel of a vast cosmic machine that is destined for annihilation." [00:14:49]