Joseph Hennig

I did not come here today to argue creationism versus evolution. I want to get into the nitty gritty details
of life.
What we all struggle with and what humanity isapart from science, without neglecting science.
Endorphins (evolutionary biology) vs. The beauty of life
If we establish that God created the heavens and the earth and are willing to adopt the worldview that
all of existence did not come into being, based on chance but instead, based on an intelligent design
well then it will be much easier to proceed.

What I am getting at is that I cannot offer a simple explanation and a proof for any of these vigorously
argued topics (like creationism or evolution) by scholars well beyond my intelligence. One needs faith
for any mindset whether he is willing to believe it or not,
1 out of 10^2Billion,
are the chances that this universe spontaneously came into existence, and so without going into a short
disproof of multiverse theory, consider the chances that one must have faith in in order to deny the
existence of God logically. Instead, I would like to pose that there is more beauty when one simply
looks at the chances we exist. That brings me to my first detail, Pleasure. So as humans we experience
pleasure when we look at something beautiful. Many sociologists would argue that that is our bodies
natural response to stimulate the pleasure centers of our brain as an adaptation to survive. So
essentially, they say that recognizing beauty is simply a biochemical response. However, with the
existence of God, and an intelligent design, beauty means so much more.
(Genesis 1:31)
From the bibles, perspective beauty is what God originally created.
So even apart from the idea that beauty means so much more because Christians believe that God is
beauty. We all know that our response to beauty is more than a chemical response, Tim Keller says, In
the presence of great art, or even great natural beauty, we have the inescapable feeling that there is
more to the world than its physical reality. He continues to argue that Seeing beauty invokes much
more than feeling. In fact, We feel a NEED for this feeling. (discussion question 1)Therefore, Evolutionary
Biology proposes a solution to that feeling of needing beauty, by saying that natural selection hardwired
our belief in God into our minds, because it was directly or indirectly associated with traits that helped
our ancestors adapt to their environment. However, many believe not only that this argument contains
a fatal contradiction, but that it actually points to another clue for God!
Evolutionary biology essentially teaches us that through natural selection we build adaptations to cope
with our environment they believe that some of these adaptations are religion, morality, or even fight vs
flight. However, that also teaches us not to trust our minds or mental faculties, because anything that
we have developed could be a tool to help us survive. The famous Darwins Doubt says: if mans mind is
risen from the lower animals, how is it that we can trust it? So evolutionary science tries to have it both
ways. They apply their skepticism to our beliefs about God, but exempt their belief in evolutionary
science! The power of reason is based on its independence of the physical world.
(Discussion question 2)
So im going to tell a short story, and be honest about my life and struggles, knowing that this is an open
atmosphere free of judgment.

The problem with science is most often the idea of Knowing-it-all, heck, I quite often struggle with the
idea of, Knowing-it all.
1. When it comes to college classes, I often excel at learning new subjects; therefore, suddenly I
can teach the class better than my professor. Or in other areas of my life like socially, physically,
or even spiritually, I get entangled in introspective successes.
2. Intellectually
3. Im sure that everyone in here has written a talk or done some type of formal presentation
before and you hate rewording it for various reasons!
4. As I finished this presentation, I was quite proud of the research I had actually done. This is all-
good and well, until I took my presentation to my peers so that they could vet it. Essentially, I
had taken ownership of something that was not mine, and I only began to realize that as they
commented on my presentation. Yes, I had performed the research, and Yes I compiled the data
and found the trends; however, They knew the ins and outs, my simple explanation was
inadequate. I had a hard time accepting thiswhat I now callfact. I even decided not to talk
about specific details as I mentioned in the beginning!! Initially I had it in my head that my
research was on point and when they listened to my presentation, they pinpointed how my
arguments for or against evolution were not big enough. I was in anguish over the fact that I did
not Know-it-all, so i tried to reason with myself to argue with her that my presentation was
not inadequate, I quickly began to self-justify my slides and the information I included. I began
thinking, I am only able to have a 15 minute talk, I was the one who did the research, I have
done more hands-on experiments than they have, etc. However, as those thoughts crossed my
mind I began to recognize the truths in their critiques I reasoned,
Well, I did actually perform many of my failed experiments, and made leaps between data sets,
so just maybe you never really did Know-it-all; because you are just as flawed or perhaps more
flawed than any of the other researchers working on this.
Then i realized, as i have many times before that, I often look at a beach from the waves,
without seeing my footsteps along the shore. C.S. Lewis put it best as:
5. Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to
God: the proud, the [greedy], the self-righteous, are in that danger.
6. In order to grasp the meaning in C.S lewis quote from The Problem of Pain, I will attempt to
utilize the beach and ocean imagery. C.S Lewis is saying that people who often find themselves
so far out on the waves of happiness, contentment and success, look in at their lives
and overlook the mistakes and see their lives as entirely satisfactory. Essentially, the Know-it-all
complex is the symptom of self-centeredness.

7. Socially
8. I grew up in a household with two schizophrenic parents and went to four different schools (one
of which was a secluded catholic school), and I also lived in ten different houses across the city
before the age of fourteen. Therefore, Life never allowed me to develop socially. However, as i
entered into collegewhich after having worked for a year after high-school I had my life
togetherI began to mature socially. I developed friendships, and entered into romantic
relationships which boosted my self-esteem and confidence; however, as I matured, I quickly
reached points where I believed that I reached my goal in maturity. I began to marvel at who I
had become (not becoming); I was becoming entangled in introspective success.
9. So when I found a group of christian friends, and a moral relationship, I could not handle
constructive criticisms and began justifying my actions, and preparing an elaborate defense. So,
although that relationship seemed to have a moral edge to it, and i was learning some things
about being more socially aware and having more integrity, my motivations were never any
deeper than trying to excuse my actions. Even relationships that do not specifically honor God
can sometimes better someone morally, afterall we all have this god complex where we believe
that we can save ourselves. So, my word of caution in that regard is not to be fooled by false
progression, only the things of God should matter, for if they dont, and our commitment to live
morally is essential, then Jesuss sacrifice and resurrection becomes nullified. If one calls
themselves Christian then, no, of course his death and resurrection are not nullified, and often
something needs to happen for us to realize how desperately we are in need of a savior who can
take us out of our pit of self-centeredness. It was not until that relationship ended that I began
to recognize my depravity; however, as the stubborn man i have been, I did not ask Jesus to
save me, instead I read Mere Christianity, and started the cycle of remaining outside the zone of
needing saving all over again.
10. Spiritually
11. So yes I stumble and fall in the temptation to be intellectually prideful, as well as socially. What
can I say? I am a sinner that needs His grace. However, as I have clearly shown, I often do not
have that truth ready to confront my own self-centeredness. In fact, I often fail spiritually, and
somehow manage to make that a self-centered thing. During my transition into college and new
moral relationships, I began to seek behavioral remedies in the bible. However, I did not focus
on Gods grace. As many Christians have been trapped in, I found it hard to apply the idea of
grace to my life. This is because in times when I was not weighed down by my sins, I was free
from believing I needed any assistance, and then times when i was stuck in my sin, I believed
God wanted nothing to do with me.
12. Essentially, I fought two spiritual battles (which I am clearly still a work in progress) where in one
I had sufficient strength to continue tracking and in the other, I had fallen beyond the wayside.
In either case I was self-absorbed. I have vivid memories of being in church and getting so into
worship because I was not weighed down by the guilt of sins, and in my mind I presented
myself to God, as staying on the right track. This is not the right way to glorify God. Thus I
continued on my path of self centeredness committing one of the most grievous sins. Tim Keller
says it best, In short, hell is simply ones freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory
into infinity (Luke 16:24-31 ). I was experiencing hell on earth, as i often do through my own
self-centeredness, or self righteousness.
13. Trinitys Take on Self-Centeredness
14. Instead I needed to look to God, but i believe that i was too afraid to do that, because I knew in
my heart that Gods standards are so much higher than my morality. If I gave into God and
accepted his grace then suddenly I did not have the right to live inside the bounds of my own
morality. Suddenly there was nothing God couldnt ask of me. Now that is a sobering thought. I
believe C.S. Lewis quotes always drive things home in the best way; therefore without further
adieu, C.S. Lewis says,
15. I think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an
obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good
enough. He has done all we wanted Him to do, and we should be obliged if He would now leave
us alone. As we say I never expected to be a saint, I only wanted to be a decent ordinary
chap.But this is the fatal mistake. Of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made
into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended
ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us.
16. Now, not to be confusing by any means, but in all the moments where I strived to live morally,
and not sin, I certainly think I WAS doing the right thing; however, we must be clear that
the actions were for the wrong reasons. Thus the fruit that those actions bore in my life were
not fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23 ) but instead were fruits of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-
21 ). C.S. Lewis gets to the heart of the issue, when he says that, the question is not what we
intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us. We are the mark of
God in this reality, we are made in his image and likeness, yet we have also tainted that. In all
reality, we were made to glorify God, and many times Christians ruin that beautiful reality by
making it seem that, in our current condition, we can do that by our own accord. However we
cannot, we desperately need the relationship with Christ to bring us into union with God, and
He will justify our attempts at morality. Through union with God, we Glorify Him.
17. To really understand that, one must understand one of the most confusing doctrines of
Christianity, The Holy Trinity. Firstly, the trinity has existed for all of eternity as a community
(Revelation 22:13 ). Secondly, one must understand Love or the idea of love apart from what
physicians would label a biochemical state of mind but instead a love like (John 3:16 ). Love in
this sense, a christian sense, is defined by its infectious essence, christian love is not contained
in a biochemical state of mind, but given and transferred to those whom we love. God is a triune
God, and every fiber of his essence is consistently loving each of the three strands of his essence
(Father son and spirit)(John 15:26 , Matthew 28:19 , Matthew 3:17 , Galatians 3:20 , Luke
3:21-22 ). That eternal Love and commitment to one another unifies them and they glorify
each other, they experience total freedom through glorifying each other and feel a love that
exists for all of eternity.
18. Glorifying is the act of other-centered hearts. John 17:1-24 speaks all about the Glory of God,
and is honestly quite confusing. This passage of scripture defines the essence of the Trinity.
Jesus says that, this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom you have sent. With the trinity there is everlasting love, and when we believe in Jesus
sacrifice we partake in that love, and we take His life for our own, to be eternally loved by the
trinity, and experience eternal life. That is the essence of the trinity, for the trinity loved the
world into existence.
19. To end this topic I would like to quote from Tim Kellers book The Reason For God: Belief in an
Age of Skepticism.
20. However, if God is triune, then loving relationships in community are the great fountain at
the centre of reality. When people say, God is love, I think they mean that love is extremely
important, or that God really wants us to love. But in the Christian conception, God really has
love as his essence. If he was just one person he couldnt have been loving for all eternity. If he
was only the impersonal all-soul of Eastern thought, he couldnt have been loving, for love is
something persons do. Eastern religions believe the individual personality is an illusion, and
therefore love is, too.Chesterton wrote, For the Buddhist personality is the fall of man, for the
Christian it is the purpose of God, the whole point of his cosmic idea. It is the purpose of God
because he is essentially, eternally, interpersonal love.
21. Therefore, as we Love and Glorify God, we dont have anything to sacrifice but to Love and
Glorify is gain. Then as Christians we should emanate that Love and reflect the other-
centeredness of the Trinity. We are equipped to do this by Loving the Son, reading His word,
worshiping His character, and being accepted into the Heart of the Trinity itself. Then, Love that
is more than extravagant gifts or joyous voices shall emanate from our churches and
lives, through leadership, kindness, creativeness etc. (Galatians 5:22-23 ). Therefore, I shall
reiterate, to Love and Glorify God, is to gain, there is no real sacrifice.











Discussion Questions
1. As far back as St. Augustine, this felt need was seen as a clue to Gods existence. With every
other need we feel, there exists something to satisfy it. So how do we understand the need for
meaning and beauty? Is it God?Interestingly though many people reject the cartoon version of
heaven (angels playing harps on clouds), what the Bible promises is a renewed earth and
renewed bodies. Who wouldnt want to live on a perfected earth?
2. What types of examples can you provide of suffering proving Gods existence? like Jesus Cross