Road Trip.

"The road stretches out forever.  It never disappears behind a hill or into a forest.  It goes on and on, flat and hopeless into the dust, into infinity.  It goes on so long and so straight that only failure of sight or the curve of the earth prevent you from seeing where it goes.  She sits on the hood of her car pulled over at the side of the road.  It's a good car, old but mechanically sound if not visually pleasing anymore.  But the gauges don't work anymore, so how much gas she has left is only a guess. Her knees are pulled up under her chin and she feels the weight of it all sink in.  She could have just stopped in the middle of the road, because there is no one coming from one direction or the other.  She glances over at the sign again, hoping that some information has changed.  It has not.  In fact there is no useful information at all.  On the faded sign, next to the picture of where a picture of where a gas pump used to be, there is an empty spot where the miles used to be.  After a few minutes, she hops off the hood and goes to look closer at the sign.  She can make out a "4", but that doesn't tell her much.  It might be 40, 204 or 4 million miles until the next stop.  She has been stopped now for probably 20 minutes.  She is paralyzed by the lack of information, the lack of knowing.  Although really, what difference would knowing make?  She still has to make this trip, knowing nothing about how it will end.  When she started she had so many hopes for where it would lead, not really caring, but just happy to be on the move.  Now, as she wanders into desperation, she just hopes to survive."

Forgive me, but let me break from the story for a moment.  Driving home the other a couple of days ago, I was listening to talk radio and caught the tale end of a caller.  He was animated, but succinct, thoughtful and clear.  He was talking about the search for God, positing that Man's search for God was evidence of Man creating God and not the other way around.  His monologue was so succinct and thought out that it did not leave much room for response.  He went on to say that science had now identified the part of the brain that was evolved to be spiritual.  He referenced the book, The God Part of the Brain and the website God Part .  I'm not much of a journalist, so I didn't do the necessary research on any of this, but here's a small taste:

"What if we were to now apply this same principle to the fact that every known culture from the dawn of our species has believed in some form of a spiritual reality? Wouldn't this suggest that spirituality must represent an inherent characteristic of our species, that is, a genetically inherited trait? Furthermore, wouldn't this then also suggest that our "spiritual" instincts, just like our linguistic ones, must be generated from some very specific region within the human brain? I informally refer to this site as the "God" part of the brain, a series of neural connections from which our spiritual beliefs are generated."

The caller, after describing this God Part of the Brain went on to suggest that, early man, because their life was so short and brutish needed a way of coping and essentially this God Part of the Brain was proof of an evolutionary coping mechanism.  And Religion, Belief and Spirituality were all essentially a way of making sense of things we don't understand.  

He was a good caller.  And although he had done a lot of research, he was still drawing a conclusion based on his beliefs and not necessarily as scientific as he would have the listeners believe.  It felt like, and it often feels like, there was a proclamation that because we have this scientific discovery, there is no God.  That is quite a leap.  Essentially, he does the very thing he is arguing against.  That is offering up a way of making sense of that which we do not understand, just like those poor brutish cave dwellers.  

Generally, I believe in God a creator of all.  Specifically, I believe in the Savior Jesus Christ who died for the sins of the world.  Therefore, conclusions I draw from the same information that the non-believing caller was using is, not surprisingly, entirely different.  If you tell me that there is a part of the brain that is genetically disposed to seeking God, it is reasonable for me to assert that that part of the brain is right in doing so!  Not because we need to cope, but because there is a God. The website goes on to say, quite honestly that :

"The 'God' Part of the Brain" offers a secular humanistic [albeit atheistic] alternative to our old religious paradigms. Herein lies a new way of perceiving ourselves, our place in the universe and ultimately what it means to be human—flawed and mortal—but with the hope of living meaningful and fulfilling existences despite that there is no God, no soul nor any afterlife."

This, of course, is a belief system.  Compelling, especially to an atheist, but no more founded in science than any belief system.  It is, again, a means of making sense of things.  Scientific discoveries were born out of the desire and for the purpose of Glorifying God, discovering his nature and bringing mankind closer to the Awe of the Universe.  Now, people make amazing scientific discoveries and the first reaction is "See, I told you there was no God!"  

Discovery:  There is a part of the brain that seeks meaning.  

Conclusion:  This is a trait, evolved to help humans cope.
Even if this conclusion is true, it's hardly satisfying or substantiated.  We know so little.  My unscientific conclusion would be:  Man seeks, so there must be something to find.  For an illustration, let's consider that there is a part of the brain that can use the olfactory senses to determine if something is spoiled.  It is safe to conclude that there is such a thing as spoiling. Furthermore, we have evolved the understanding that these spoiled things are harmful to us.  The brain urges us to search for food, food exists.  The brain compels us to seek a mate and have intercourse and there is such a thing as pro-creation.  Did we invent Math? Or has math always existed waiting to be discovered? Like an itch in our brain compelled us to seek it out?  C.S. Lewis says it this way,

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." (Mere Christianity, Bk. III, chap. 10, "Hope")

Evolution hardly explains away God.  It's likely that whatever God's means have been for ruling the Universe since before the Big Bang, if they happen to include evolution, I will not understand them.  To suggest that anyone fully understands the implications of the Theory of Evolution is only slightly more absurd than suggesting that we can fully understand the ways of God.  The best course always starts with understanding how little we know. 

Coping, may very well be an evolutionary creation.  Belief in something does ease the pain and burden of this brutish life.  It wasn't just brutish for the pre-historic, it's brutish for us as well.  A longer life doesn't make it less so.  Our pain has evolved with our life span.  But anything man made eventually wears thin and cannot be sustained.  A belief system will fail when things get too hard, too mysterious or too weird to explain away.  It is at that point that genuine connection to a Real God becomes critical.  Up until this critical point, our self constructed world view may have done the job.  But in all our lives there comes a point, when we need more.  Life has a way of crumbling that which we have built for our selves and ultimately, we do not have the capacity to save ourselves.

Let's try to wrap this up, shall we?  Let's return to our girl at the crossroads.  She is wondering what to do next.  

"After squatting under the sign, thinking of giving up and just laying back into the dust, making dust angels until she wastes away, she has a moment of resolve.  She bounces up and heads to the driver side.  She confidently turns the key and the car rumbles and starts right up, as if to say 'I'm with you!  Let's go!'  The girl glances out at the sign again, 'It's not that far.'  she tells herself.  She looks down at the broken gas gauge and says, "There's enough."  With the car now shifted forcefully in drive, it spits streams of gravel out from under the tires until it squeals on to the pavement.  The girl didn't even look for oncoming traffic.  Out on the road, forward momentum taking hold, she smiles confidently.  "I'm gonna make it." she says almost audibly to the empty car.  A few more miles down the road, as the monotonous hum of the tires on the road plays under the wind whipping through the open windows, a question mark starts to make it's way onto the end of that lingering sentence.  'I'm gonna make it?' As she presses on, foggy thought becomes clearer in her head.  It's a persistent thought that has always been there in one form or another, 'Will someone save me?'"

The girl can tell herself that there is enough gas or that it's not that far, but that doesn't make it so.  What remains for the girl and for everyone taking breath, is that we need to be rescued.  Her fate on the road and in the physical world remains uncertain.  However, her eternal fate as well as our own is not bound by circumstances.  Eventually there is a reckoning for us all.  There is no escaping it one way or another.  Coping or explaining or hope itself may get us on the road.  However, if object of our faith in is not real, then there will be a consequence. That thing in our brain or in our heart that tells us to seek out this rescuer might have very well been put there by the one that is meant to rescue us.  That mysterious savior we crave, may turn out to be real after all.  Our path and our destination is determined by our willingness to step out in faith: To act on that urge to seek out the rescuer, the savior, the creator of all things.  My belly tells my brain to seek out food, so I do.  My skin tells my brain to put on a jacket, so I do.  My heart aches with pain and joy and tells my whole being to find rest in the author of life.  So I did.  This Faith that continues to grow and sometimes shake is only worth something if Christ is the true King and Savior of all.  I have enough evidence in my experience to have a resounding confirmation.  But it remains true that I won't know the depth and the scope of his answer until I pass on to the next life.