Despair

There aren't many behaviors and actions that people in the world engage in that really shock me anymore. I'm only 23, so I'm sure I'll eventually eat those words, but right now I, like all early-mid-twenty-somethings, feel like I've seen the idea of there being nothing new under the sun thoroughly enough, even in just the past few years alone.

I think what does surprise me, however, is just what people are willing to accept and believe if it keeps them away from the God of Scripture.

There are, and have been, various philosophical systems throughout history. I believe the current, overarching system in America right now is post-modernism, which denies any kind of real truth and says that multiple contradictory things can be true at the same time. Philosophically, it's completely illogical, but that's not the point of this post.

Some of these systems lack God completely, which doesn't surprise me at all. Some of these systems' only logical conclusion is that there is no ultimate meaning to life. This is what is called a "philosophy of despair." That fact also doesn't surprise me.

What does surprise me is that adherents of those systems openly and honestly admit, and even embrace, that fact. They are perfectly content with the idea that, once they die, their existence ultimately means absolutely nothing. There is no ultimate meaning to it all. Everything is pointless.

But people are happy to embrace that idea so long as it means the God of Scripture doesn't exist. People would rather live like nothing matters than face the possibility of judgment from God. This being, of course, despite the fact that God has provided a substitute, a covenant of grace. They'd rather believe that nothing matters rather than live like everything matters.

Sometimes it baffles me just how far people are willing to run from God. But then again, since I'm a Calvinist, I probably shouldn't be surprised or baffled at all. It's just proof of total depravity, isn't it? It's proof that mankind is morally incapable of turning to God rather than from him. It's not that mankind physically can't. It's that "everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed" (John 3:20).

Sometimes people do crazy things.