Lesson Two - Questions

For anyone who may not have had a chance to join us last Wednesday or for anyone who might be interested in reviewing the questions from last lesson for more personal study and reflection, have a look at the questions from last week as well as some of the answers (answers are from information taken from the official Truth Project website).


1. Opening Question:

A. What did you see on the tour? Here are some of the key items: Taken captive by lies; Barna's study; gently instructing opponents; seeing them as captives; hollow and deceptive philosophy; assumptive language; "the cosmos is all that is"; made of "star stuff"; the cosmic cube; true philosophy and true religion arriving at the same principle; worldview presuppositions; universals and particulars; spiritual naturalism; naturalistic philosophy implications; personal vs formal worldview; conforming to the world; metamorphosis. [Add your own]
B. What was particularly striking to you?  Why?.

2. Why are so many people – even those who argue adamantly for the "cosmic cube" perspective – so obviously uncomfortable with life "inside the box"? How do they attempt to deal with this difficulty?(Though estranged from God, man still bears the imprint of His image. Somewhere deep down inside, he feels the need of the transcendent; he senses the reality of the "God-shaped vacuum" in his heart that only the Creator can fill. Ecclesiates 3:11 states, "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men." Those who are unwilling to look outside "the cosmic cube" for the fulfillment of this need try to find ways to "bring God inside" by identifying Him in some way or other with "the stuff in the box." This is the source of spiritual naturalism, paganism, pantheism, and panentheism.)

3. What do we mean by universals and particulars? How are they related? What bearing do they have on our quest for answers to the "Big Questions" of life? (Universals are broad, over-arching, all-inclusive truths. They are in effect the answers to the Big Questions – e.g., "Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What are reason and logic? What do we really know and how do we know that we know it?" The particulars are the specific details of life and the physical world as we observe them. The particulars are like beads on a string or threads in a tapestry; the universals are the pattern or plan by which the beads or threads are organized into a meaningful whole. Universals lend significance to the particulars; but knowledge of the particulars will not necessarily lead us to an understanding of the universals.

4. Dr. Tackett asserts, "You won't find the answers to the Big Questions inside the box." Why not? (We define the particulars as "the stuff inside the box." As indicated above, particulars by themselves can never lead us to universals; there is no pattern in a pile of beads or threads. To perceive the pattern, we must look to an overarching plan that only exists outside the box.)

5. What, according to Dr. R. C. Sproul, is the distinction between morality and ethics? How has confusion on this point precipitated a crisis in ethics in the modern world? (Morality is simply a description of what is – the customs that govern the behaviour of a given group of people. Ethics concerns itself with what ought to be – how the same group of people should behave as measured against some higher standard of right and wrong. Mankind, by rejecting this higher standard (the universals) has confounded the two, thus creating what Sproul refers to as statistical ethics, a system that basically asserts that what is normal is right, and that behaviour can only be judged against the background of "survey data" or popular consent.

6. How does the biblical worldview stand opposed to the "cosmic cube" worldview? (Stated simply, the biblical worldview leaves the lid of the box open, allowing for divine intervention. The biblical worldview concludes that God is at work in the daily lives of men.)

7. Is it possible for a Christian to be deceived and "taken captive" by the empty philosophies of the world? If you have been deceived, how do you know? How? (The warnings we are given in Scripture – passages like Romans 12:1, 2 and Colossians 2:8 – indicate that Christians can very easily be taken captive to lies if they do not remain vigilant and conversant with the truth. The best way to guard against this danger is to examine ourselves constantly against the standard of God's Word. We need to examine our lives and see if our actions and behaviours reflect the beliefs we claim to hold.)