I am a “bottom line” type of thinker. I always analyze all arguments to find what is the fundamental or foundational premise the speaker uses to sustain his theory or ideas. While I do not always succeed, I can usually identify the basic premise of any argument or the fatal flaw that makes the argument a cliché or an outright dumb idea. As a “bottom line” type of thinker, I reject any philosophical or theological proposition that does not have an airtight logical foundation. If the proposed philosophy does not have the inherent quality of a direct correlation between the belief and the basis upon which that the belief stands, I begin to suspect that the philosophical pronouncement is false. I will expand on this proposition as I develop my thinking over the next few posts. 

I want to share with you a few “bottom line” issues that impact how I approach every issue that has moral consequences, whether it is abortion or Darwinian evolution. I will write these “bottom line” issues as a series to focus on each proposition as an independent, but not as an isolated, topic. All my reasoning is founded upon the one premise that all logic and knowledge emanates from God. Without this foundational principle, nothing we experience in this life has any purpose and meaning beyond our personal experiences, which are at best, a subjective view of the world. In my 42 years of pastoral ministry I have discovered that when people lose purpose and meaning, they also lose hope. When hope is lost, their desire to achieve and to excell also disappears.

The first “bottom line” issue I want to address is that "God is the One who is." Please note that I did not say that God exists. I said that "God is the One who is." This means that God did not come into existence, but that he simply is because he has always been. This proposition is consistent with Moses’s initial description of God when he heard God’s voice saying: “I am the One who is.” This phrase is also translated as “I AM that I AM,” which has the same meaning. The God described in the Bible as the “One who is,” is the Creator of heaven and earth. He has revealed his eternal attributes in and through creation (Romans 1:20). The Bible is the evidence that God has spoken about his character qualities through his interactions with people. The God of the Bible has declared that men are sinners, and that he, himself in the person of Jesus Christ, provided the means to reconcile man to God. Finally, according to the Apostle Paul, not one of these fundamental issues would amount to anything if Jesus did not rise from the dead. However, if Jesus rose from the dead everything changed. Everything! The first premise that gives purpose and meaning to the human existence is that God, “the One who is,” designed and created everything that has come into existence to function in harmony with God’s revealed character.

The idea of God, as a personal, spiritual, and rational being, is paramount in any discussions about life, consciousness, purpose, design, and morality. Without the central conviction of the reality of “the God who is,” we don’t even have the most basic premise to discuss reality. Some people may argue that reality is relative, but this is only true if reality is a subjective construct, like transgenderism. There are two sexes, and only two sexes, male and female. Every human being ever born into this world, all one hundred twenty-two billion of us, is the direct product of a male/female relationship. This is an undeniable reality. A person is born either male or female. The concept that people can be born in the wrong body is as foreign to the congruency between truth and reality as the proposition that you can have a square circle. There is no possible world in which a circle and a square would be identical, and there is no possible world in which the subconscious person was born in the wrong body. While body and soul are two elements of the same person, they do not exist or are formed independent of each other. 

The only proper description to the assertion that people can be born in the wrong body is that the person is suffering from a psychological dissorder that has disassociated the person from his reality. We need to be compassionate to transgender people by providing all the assistance they need to heal from their spiritual injuries and help as many of them as possible to accept their design and purpose. A spiritual injury is the result of an event that produces an irreconcilable and inherent contradiction between what the person believes to be true and what is factually true. When a person is unable to recognize the objective truth outside themselves, they have developed a blind spot created by a catastrophic spiritual injury. (For more information on this topic, please refer to my book “Healing the Broken Spirit.”)

When people have a distorted view of reality, they cannot even discuss or grasp the most basic tenets of truth. It is, therefore, a waste of time to engage in a discussion regarding the truth with people who are divorced from reality. For instance, I do not engage in theological discussions with people suffering from Alzheimer or dementia. It is not that I do not value them. It is that they have lost the cognitive ability to engage in meaningful conversation. These people need our care and compassion, but we cannot, under any circumstances, encourage or entertain their incongruent musings.

Solomon, who was the smartest and wisest man that has ever lived, stated that, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). This means, at the very least, that without the fear of the Lord a person cannot even begin to develop knowledge. The biblical concept of the “fear of the Lord” is not a reference to being afraid of God. It is, rather, a statement regarding the recognition of God’s preeminence in all things created, even his sovereignty over our own lives. If you pay attention to the rhetoric of the people who promote the sexualization of children, the aborting of children, and racist policies of dividing people into racial or social groups, they always view God, the Bible, the Christian Church, and Christians with disdain. With their actions and rhetoric, these people are revealing that they do not “fear the Lord,” and yet many Christians entertain their anti-God delusions. Just read and listen to what these people are saying in light of the Supreme Court’s decision that abortion is not a constitutional right, which isn’t. They are attacking churches because they have lost their fear of God. All that matters to them is their pagan ritual of sacrificing their children to Moloch, the Canaanite god of fire.

The psalmist also stated that “the fool says in his heart there is no God” (Psalms 14:1). Let me expand on this verse briefly. The quote above is forceful enough, but the psalmist went further and made three additional assertions regarding the fool that are worth mentioning in this conversation.

First, the psalmist stated that the fool “are corrupt.” The dictionary defines the word corrupt as a person with dishonest practices, without integrity, of debased character, low morality, immoral. These are the character qualities of the fool, and we are witnesses of all the foolishness around us. Second, the fool does "abominable" things. The dictionary, again, is helpful in giving us additional information about the meaning of the word abominable. It means repugnantly hateful, detestable, loathsome, of inferior quality and character. These are the characteristics of the actions of the fool. Third, they never do anything good. This final statement is very telling. The fool does not even have the capacity to do anything that conforms to God’s character, which is the embodiment of goodness. Imagine that! Most of us struggle to do what is good and right, but most of us still want to do what is morally upright. The fool, however, don’t even have the capacity to do the right thing. Until the fool is awaken from his foolishness, his actions will always be contrary to God's character. He will not even try to pretend that he has any room for God in his life.

Without the acceptance of “the God who is,” people do not have any claims to any form of moral high ground on any issue such as abortion, for instance. The abortionists pretend to be defenders of women, but when they promote abortion on demand, they are in fact denying women the very foundation of their identity and being. God designed women to accomplish many things, but they were specifically designed to develop new life. A female uterus has only one purpose—to house and grow to terms the developing life of the man’s and the woman’s offspring. Every month women go through a cicle in which her body is preparing the uterus to house someone else's body. When women intentionally abort their children, they are rejecting their own humanity and their sense of self-worth that comes from functioning according to their design.

Without God, people don’t even have the possibility to acquire true knowledge, much less the ability to make moral distinctions. People without God can make moral claims, but they do not have a basis to sustain them. When political leaders claim that abortion is “health care,” they are promoting a philosophy of death for political expediency. I have asked many times, what is the abortion end game? What is the thing the abortionists expect to achieve with their gruesome practice? Well, if we look at the foundational principles Margaret Sanger, the founder of abortion industry, established, we can quickly ascertain that abortion is a racist practice with the primary purpose to reduce and eliminate people of color, particularly blacks and Latinos. In other words, the abortion industry is a racist philosophy that many in the Church are promoting and supporting.

The reality of “the God who is,” (“the I AM that I AM”), cannot be denied, especially when we consider the consequences of human life without the moral parameters God has established. If God designed the laws of nature, then the natural order and the animal kingdom will function according to those laws, regardless of whether human beings accept or reject God’s design. However, failure to adhere to God’s design will always result in death. If God is the One who is, then, his design for the universe, the world, and humanity is irreversible and not negotiable. (To be continued…)