Transcript: Lesson 6 - The Story of Naturalism

Welcome, friends, we are thinking about stories and the stories that are out there in our culture that  they're really trying to give us rest try to give us true meaning and say, this is where we can find  salvation. And we're thinking about these cultural stories, again, so that we can be aware of how these  are active and how these are at work, not just in how people think but but in how we live in, in what's  communicated to us as, as this is the good life, in our broader culture. And so as we, as we think about  these stories, we have to realize these are not it's not so much that these stories are directly presented to  us. Right, because if they were in a lot of ways, we might set up red flags, and we say, oh, like that  doesn't quite fit with, with with our Christian faith. But they're all going to work in much more subtler  ways that it's in cultural practices, and attitudes, a lot of things we just take for granted, that actually  embody these stories that that don't fit that don't align with God's story of of who he is, and who were  called to be in his people. Now, what I want us to think about in this particular video, is the story of  naturalism. And what is when I say naturalism, what I mean is this, this view that there is that there's  nothing more than nature, there, there is no supernatural, that everything that is, is just matter in  motion, that a lot of people in our world, ascribe to this, this this view of things, that there is no God,  there are no there, there are no other spiritual beings. That really all we have to do to understand the  nature of reality is to understand that it's it's physical, it's matter in motion, that everything ultimately  can be explained in that way and understood in that way. And so that's why it's, I want to be clear, it's,  it's not just affirming nature, or creation, which I think Christians would want to do, it's the isn't a piece  of this, that says, nature is all there is matter is all there is. And that's the key to understanding reality.  Now, one of the ways that this shows up in our culture is attitude towards sex, and toward bodies.  Ultimately, if naturalism is true, but what this means is that our bodies or sex has no real meaning.  Because this is just a it's a physical act. It's something that if you tie this in with the story of  individualism, you know, each individual should should be respected. So they have the right to define  what they do with their body to define when or how, or with whom they would, they would participate  in sexual activity, you know, so this combines with that kind of individualism to say, you define what  seems right to you, you do what seems right to you. Because, deep down there is this belief in  naturalism that they're really our bodies have no meaning in and of themselves that sex doesn't actually  mean anything. It's, it's a physical activity. And beyond that, there's really nothing that we can say,  actually defines it and says, Well, this is what it is, or does have this meaning. And so naturalism, looks  at our bodies, looks at sex, and says, you get to decide what that means. You get to decide what you do  with your body. Because it there is no link between nature and the supernatural. There is no link  between God as creator made our bodies and has said, This is what our bodies are, for God is the one  who, who created sex. And this is the meaning that sex has because God is creator, David, that all of  that is, is blacked out of the picture. And in fact, again, to think about how naturalism and  individualism connect, really, if I were to say to somebody, well, this is this is how God defines the  meaning of your body. This is how God defines the meaning of sex. From the perspective of  individualism that actually looks like oppression, like somebody else is telling me what this means,  rather than me getting to define for myself what what I think this means or what I want it to mean.  Now, if we look at ourselves, if we look at our world as mere matter, 

you know, matter in motion, then how do we think about technology and salvation? Well, the  Theologian and emphasis Alan Verhey talks about technology in this way, he says, because we view  ourselves as just matter, technology becomes the art of altering nature as a response to suffering. The  art of altering nature as a response to suffering. So this is something that to be clear human beings can  do. And part of what's happened, especially in the modern world, thanks to science is that we have  figured out how to alleviate and reduce all kinds of different human suffering. I think especially when  you think about something like vaccinations, or when you think about something like, easily available  medicine that in the previous generations didn't have, what we see is that our world today has has  significantly less physical suffering because we have embraced technology, because we've embraced  medical technology as a means to reducing suffering. And I want to be clear, much of that is good, that 

when I talk about technology, some people use technology in this very kind of negative way. But part  of how God has made us as as image bearers is that we can interact with his world that we can use  science that we can use our reason to look and test an experiment and think about how things work in  God's world. And so I am not by any means anti science or anti technology. We can use those things to  do amazing things and bring amazing benefits and blessings to people. But what happens in our world  is that oftentimes, technology and medical technology, how we can interact with our bodies, becomes  the ultimate end, the ultimate goal that we're striving for. And so in this view, salvation, you will find  real rest in peace, when you can master nature, when you have so much knowledge about your body,  that that disease will be completely eradicated that, that any sense of struggle will be overcome. And so we can see human beings, not only pushing into these areas of medical technology, but we see, we see  people in some ways, even going beyond that to say, How can we enhance the human body? Not that  there's anything wrong with it, but how do we actually enhance it and go beyond some of the some of  the natural limits that we might have. And so what you start to see is that this view, looks at any kind of suffering any kind of physical difficulty, as a problem to be overcome, without taking into account the  fact that we are more than physical beings. That part of what this does is it often blocks out the spiritual reality. And it does this in a couple of ways. It does this by failing to see that sometimes actually,  suffering does something to us, in a very positive way, spiritually. This is very counterintuitive,  especially to American culture. Because American culture says suffering is to be avoided at all costs. If  you can ever avoid suffering, you should, you should get out of it. But scripture seems to say that it's  actually as we enter into suffering, as we walk with Jesus, we realize that that life will present  difficulties, we recognize that we maybe we will suffer even specifically for the sake of the gospel. And that that's something not to be avoided, but but to walk through with hope and with grace and  understand that God is at work in that. And so part of the problem with this story is it essentially says  there's, there's no place for any kind of physical suffering that should be overcome, so that you can  fully control yourself and control your body control your circumstances, no matter what that might look like. 

It's it's, it's easy to see if we start to have the eyes that train ourselves to see these stories. It's interesting to see how this story about technology, the story about our bodies, the story about nature, how this gets  embodied in all kinds of different medical concerns related to questions of our bodies, of our sexuality,  even of gender identity and things like that. And so, here are just a couple of examples of medical  

technology that connects with how we think about marriage, sexuality, etc. So things like  contraception. Again, this is something I've found a lot of Christians in North American context, don't  even really think about contraception as as a, as a moral or theological or ethical question, they've just  accepted that especially different forms of technology, whether it's condoms or the pill, that these  things are things that they just use, and don't really even think about them possibly having theological  or moral implications. The same thing with sterilization, especially elective sterilization, that somebody would, in essence, and voluntarily that the reproductive abilities of their bodies, just again, not because  of any elective or out of any medically necessary reason, but just saying, I want to close down in  essence, this part of my body so that it doesn't function this way anymore. Think about things like  abortion is another one that is an issue that Christians are involved in a hot button political issue. But  really, it's it is an issue of medical technology, and what is a valid use of medical technology and what  is not. Some others connected to procreation to children and our bodies as well is assisted reproductive  technologies, we'll we'll spend a unit down the road, thinking about this one in a little bit more detail.  But again, part of what I see is a lot of Christians oftentimes will embrace assisted reproductive  technologies, like invitro fertilization, or even sperm donation or surrogacy, they haven't really thought  through some of the important philosophical and biblical questions about what does this say? What  does it say about our view of our bodies, our view of who we are as male and female, our view of  children. A couple others are hormone replacement therapies and gender reassignment surgeries. So  this, again, we'll spend some time thinking about folks who wrestle with gender dysphoria and 

understanding that in a deeper way, but there is this willingness in our broader culture to say, we will  dramatically alter our bodies, whether it's by hormone replacement therapy, or through sex  reassignment surgeries, there's this willingness to radically alter our bodies. And so we have to be  aware of as we think about that, obviously, I hope it's obvious how do we engage people with  compassion as we think about some of the struggles and questions that lead us because all of these  things are things that people come to because in some way, shape or form, they are trying to, to avoid  some kind of suffering something that's difficult. And so we have to approach all of these things, with a sense of compassion about why somebody might be compelled to seek out different forms of  technology to make alterations to their body. But we have to then be aware of deep down, oftentimes,  what's driving that in our culture is the story of naturalism. That really, your bodies are yours to just  shape, alter, do whatever you want with. That's very different from the biblical narrative that says, We  are not our own, our bodies are not our own, but that our bodies are created by God, that our bodies are  meant to actually put on display, the redemptive story of who Jesus is. And so we have to think very  carefully about how we embrace medical technology or not how that affects our bodies, the impact that  makes on our sexuality, our marriage, our children. And so as we, 

in the next unit, begin to dig more deeply into scripture into understanding how has God made us What  is this biblical story? What is this biblical narrative, we have to recognize that we never preach that,  teach that, read that, engage with it, we never do that in a vacuum. We're always doing it in a way that  is engaged with the story of individualism, the story of romance, the story of naturalism, so that we can  be careful so we can be reflective, about positively articulating, here's what the Bible says, and helping  people hear that is good news, helping them understand who Jesus is, and how that gets reflected and  worked out in our singleness and our marriage and our sexuality. So until next time, blessings