Return on Investment

This entry is specifically for Christians.

I’d like to talk today about the idea of “return on investment” (ROI).  It’s a term usually used in business  and is a measure of the gain or loss generated on an investment.  It is the net profit divided by the cost of investment.  ROI is expressed as a percentage rather than as an absolute amount.  Investors want to maximize their ROI.  If they do, they are doing well!  In general, I think, business people are looking for a ROI that is around 5-10% and are probably quite happy if it is a bit higher.

An interesting thing about ROI is what can happen when the investment is small.   For example, if you buy a stock for a penny, and the next day it increases by only 1 cent, have you made a good ROI?  Yes – you’ve made a great return!  You’ve made an ROI of 100%.  Of course, if all you bought was a single stock, then you didn’t make much.  But if you could find a lot of those investments you would be extremely successful.

I’d like to apply this to investing in our own lives.  I’m talking about the Christian life here.  Our goal is to grow and to become more Christ-like.  To do so, we have to invest in various activities and disciplines that help us along this path.  It’s hard work. 

Anyway, it got me to thinking about the ROI for various activities that help us grow as a Christian.  Are there some low cost, high ROI type of activities that we can do?  Some “penny stocks” that give a great ROI?  It seemed to me that those would be worth considering. 

So, I thought about this from my own personal perspective and experience.  Are there some activities that I have engaged in in my own life that didn’t require a huge investment, but paid back with a big return?  Yes, in my personal experience there are some.  In fact, I identified three high ROI activities that, in my personal experience, are an excellent investment for your own spiritual growth.

Without further ado, here are my top three in reverse order.

#3.  Writing things down. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a bad memory.  By the time I got to college, I was already organizing my personal life around that limitation.  I knew that I had to take good notes in class and that I had to write down my schedule or I would forget.  And, at the encouragement of some good friends, I started also taking my own personal notes whenever I would study the Bible or pray for things.  It became a habit for me. 

Now some of you are not blessed with a bad memory – or at least you don’t think you have a bad memory.  You think “I don’t need to write this down – I’ll remember.”  And, probably, you usually do remember, at least for a time.  But I bet you forget in the long run.  Admit it.

The other thing you need to add to an investment of writing things down is to hang on to your writings.  And, occasionally, look back at them.

I consider this a very low investment.  All you need is a writing utensil and a piece of paper (or electronic device – easier to store things).  Everyone can do it.  It takes a bit of discipline.  But that’s about it. 

What’s the payoff?  The payoff is being reminded of what God has done for you.  Despite your claims about having a good memory, you will forget.  It is human nature.  One thing in particular you will really forget is how desperate or lost or clueless you felt before God intervened.  We tend to diminish our feelings after the fact.  Thus, one of the things I try to do is to write out my feelings when I am in the midst of some difficulty.  Once the difficulty has passed and we “lived through it”, we tend to minimize how bad it was.  And, along with that, we diminish what God did, as if it wasn’t that important.

Scripture is full of examples where God tries to help us out with “memory aids.”  Many different characters in the Bible were told to build a monument of some sort, or establish some type of ritual or remembrance to help us not to forget what God has done.  Passover is a remembrance.  Jacob built an altar after his dream so generations after him could remember what happened.  Jesus told his disciples to “do this in remembrance of me.”  If we don’t, we forget.

So, the first low investment item on my list involves:  1) writing down your thoughts, prayers, etc., 2) keeping them somewhere, and 3) reviewing them every once in a while.  It’s not that hard to do, and it pays back good dividends.

#2.  Giving thanks. 

I’m talking about giving thanks to other people and I’m talking about giving thanks as a form of prayer.  Here’s another low investment, high payback activity that not only benefits you but also encourages the people around you.  It’s a true win-win situation.  Can you ever lose by being thankful?  Can you ever be too thankful?  Not in any practical way.  It’s just a good habit to develop.

My first experience with this was in third grade.  I guess my parents had taught me the importance of thanking people already.  One day the teacher was handing back our graded tests, so she had to go around to each kid in the class and give them their paper.  When she was all done she went back up to the front of the class and launched into a lecture on manners.  She said “I passed back this test to every single one of you and not one of you thanked me…except for Kevin.”  It felt good to be acknowledged but, since I was also very shy, I was mortified.  Hah!  I probably avoided thanking her after that so I wouldn’t get singled out again.  But it did impress on me how my thanking her, which was an incredibly simple act that I didn’t even think about at the time, had a big impact on her.

The only effort you have to expend in order to be a good “thank-er” is to be observant when other people are doing things that they could be thanked for.  I’m guessing that the other kids in my third grade class never thought that being handed back a piece of paper was a service to them.  It doesn’t have to be over the top, but when you are interacting with others, it is a simple thing to ask yourself “is there someone I should be thanking here?” 

Even God appreciates thanks.  There is an interesting situation with Jesus where he heals a group of ten lepers and tells them to go show themselves to the priests so that they can be declared clean (Luke 17).  All ten are healed but one of them, when he sees that he has been healed, comes back and finds Jesus and gives him thanks.  Jesus expresses a bit of wonder than only one came back to give thanks and tells the man that his sins are forgiven.  That’s a pretty good ROI right there!

Prayer is something Christians are commanded to do.  It is just communicating with God.  It shouldn’t be that hard.  But it is!  I didn’t list prayer itself on this list because I find that prayer requires a significant investment – although the benefits are huge.  But giving thanks is one aspect of prayer that can be just plain easy.  Prayer includes asking God for help, praise, confession, commitment…a whole host of things.  But, by far, the easiest type of prayer to give is a prayer of thanks.  Thank God for the things that have happened to you during the day and for the situation you are in.  In most cases (not all, of course), it is simple.  It just takes a bit of time and a little thoughtful recall.  And so, giving thanks is another low cost, high return activity that I put second on my list.

#1.  Scripture memory.

Memorizing scripture is something we make kids do in Sunday School, but I don’t know a lot of adults who spend any time on this discipline.  In my opinion, that’s a mistake.

Now I know the first thing many of you will say:  “I can’t memorize things.”  As I mentioned before, I’ve known that I had a bad memory all of my life.  But in high school and college I committed myself to working on memorizing scripture and I asked God to help me do it.  Personally, I believe He did.  At one point, when I was in my early twenties, I had about 10% of the New Testament memorized.  Admittedly, today, I could not recite any of the long passages I had memorized back then.  But they are still in my mind.  They still affect my thinking.  I remember the principles even if I can’t quote them word for word anymore.

The second thing you might say is “why should I memorize anything – I just Google it.”  In the old days, people would say “that’s what a concordance is for.”  It’s true – those are good tools.  But the “return on investment” for scripture memory is much higher than you might imagine.  It helps you to connect scriptures together and it really helps you when it comes to the practical application of scripture.  Your mind is constantly looking for connections as you go throughout the day.  When you have memorized scripture in your mind, it gives you the chance of connecting scripture with the situation you are in in real time.  Sure, you can always look up different topics in the Bible and find a list of relevant verses.  But that is rarely what we do.  Instead we just try to figure out the right thing to do in each successive situation we are faced with.  If we have a memory bank of scripture to draw on, it enables us to think more Biblically.  Further, our mind is great at categorizing things that have personal meaning to us.  Frequently there are situations that I find myself in where I recall a verse that has personal application to that situation.  It’s not something you would find searching in a concordance because, in general, it’s not a passage that has a broad meaning on the topic.  But it means something to you.  Those situations are very valuable from a Christian growth perspective.

I would also say that scripture memory gives the Holy Spirit a bigger vocabulary.  I know that sounds weird.  But does God speak to you?  God speaks through scripture.  When it is there in your brain, He can bring it to mind at the right time to help guide you and direct your life.  Personally I have found that to be a profound influence on the direction of my life.

When I memorize scripture, I don’t do anything fancy.  I simple write the verse out on a card and then review that whatever chance I get.  College seemed like the perfect opportunity because I recall spending a lot of time standing in line for something or other.  And every time I stood in line, I pulled out my stack of verse cards and started working on trying to memorize the next verse.  It doesn’t require any deep thinking.  You don’t even have to have studied out the verse or know what it means.  All it takes is a little discipline.  If all you ever do is work on scripture memory during the times you are stuck in line waiting for something, you can accomplish a lot.  Try it!

The payback from scripture memory is lifelong.  Once scripture is in your brain, it has been my experience that it is always there to be recalled.  Sometimes I still have to look it up to remember the exact wording, but I know where to go and I know it is there somewhere.  Verses I memorized thirty years ago come to my mind in direct application to something I am facing today.  That is real payback!  So, to me, scripture memory is the best ROI for a low investment effort that you can get. 

…

So, that’s my list of low investment activities that can really help you grow as a Christian.  I’m not suggesting that we ignore the hard things – the high investment activities – we can’t.  But why not add these low investment activities as well.  When it comes to Christian growth, we need all the help we can get!

Scars

          An important part of my job is to talk to people who are considering undergoing surgery to implant an experimental device.  There are lots of things to talk about and people usually have a lot of questions, as they should.  “How do I know the device will work?”  “How long is the surgery?”  “Will I have pain after the surgery?”  And, at some point in every conversation, I am asked “What about the scars?”  People want to know if they will wake up with railroad tracks on their arms and hands and neck.  “Will my scars be permanent?”  It is a reasonable concern.  It is a concern of cosmetics:  how will I look?  Yes, there will be scars.  There are some things we can do to get scars to heal better.  Over time they will fade to some degree.  But twenty years from now, if all I could see of you was your arm, I could pretty well guess what surgeries you had done just by seeing the scars that remain.

          Are scars permanent?  What does it mean to call something permanent?  I know what the person asking me means.  They want to know “am I going to have scars for the rest of my life?”  Probably.  Actually they are almost certainly permanent.  As long as you don’t define “permanent” as the same thing as “forever”!

          If you don’t believe there is life after death, then you have to anticipate that gradual decay after death.  Your body will decompose.  And, yes, over time those scars will fade away for sure.  So – are scars permanent?  Certainly not if that is our destiny.

          But if you are a Christian and believe what the Bible says about our eternal destiny, then you believe there will be a resurrection.  The details are surely sketchy, but it seems very clear that our resurrected bodies are perfect.  Clean.  New.  No scars.  So – are scars permanent?  Not if that is our destiny.

          So, no, as far as I can tell, scars will never really be permanent…that is, except for one very famous case.  This case was made clear to us in the famous story of “Doubting Thomas”.  Thomas didn’t believe that Jesus had appeared to the rest of the Disciples.  He wanted proof.  He wanted to see this risen Jesus with his own eyes.  And, within a few days, he got his chance.  Thomas is in a room with the other disciples and it happens again:  Jesus appears in the room.  And what does Jesus say to Thomas?  "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side…”  What is the implication?  The implication is this:  the scars from the crucifixion that Jesus had endured are still on his hands and still on his side.  Still there in Jesus’ new resurrected body.  Permanent scars.  A perfect body with permanent scars.  An ultimate oxymoron for sure.

          If you believe there will be a resurrection of the dead, and an eventual eternity in heaven, you may have never given much consideration to how you will know Jesus when you run in to him.  Well…I suppose there are many ways…but one sure way is to take a look at his palms.  There will be a lot of beautiful hands in heaven.  They will be perfect.  No hardened callouses.  No crooked arthritic joints.  No scars. 

          Except for two hands.

          You know, scars aren’t always just a cosmetic issue.  Sometimes they are painful.  Makes me wonder…are truly permanent scars painful?

Lunches with Lucas – Session V

[This is a continuing conversation...to start at the beginning, click here]

“So – did you think about it?” Lucas queried as I sat down at the table, completely dispensing with any pleasantries.

“I had a great week – how about you?” I said, ignoring him.  “At the very least you should be considerate enough to give me time to look at the menu” I said with a smile.

“Hah!  Neither one of us has looked at the menu in years!” Lucas said.  “Do they even have a menu?”

“Well, anyway, I wasn’t aware that I had homework from my good friend and lunch partner.  If I wanted homework, I’d go back to school,” I said.  “What was it I was supposed to do this time?”

“I know you haven’t forgotten!  I asked you to consider changing your view of the world from “there are no such things as miracles” to “miracles are extremely unlikely but can’t be ruled out,”” Lucas said. 

I was hoping he would have moved on from that topic.  So I ignored his challenge and went straight to what I knew he was trying to get at.  “Like I said before – that’s God’s problem.  If he wants me to believe, then bring it on – let’s see it!”

Lucas shrunk back a bit and I was surprised by the intensity of his expression.  “Oooh.  I’m not sure I would say that” he said with a serious expression.  But he continued “Fine – let me try an analogy out on you.”

“OK – go ahead – this ought to be interesting,” I said.

“Let’s say you go to the doctor and he tells you that you have cancer.  Whose problem is that?” Lucas asked, but didn’t wait for me to respond.  “Using your line of reasoning, you would say it is the “doctor’s problem.”  And sure, you may be relying on the doctor to come up with a cure for you, so in some sense it is the ‘doctor’s problem.’  But the fundamental problem is yours – you are the one who has cancer!” Lucas said, emphasizing the word “yours.”

“OK – yes – I understand what you are saying,” I granted him, as our drinks arrived at the table.  “But your analogy breaks down on many levels.”

“Well, it is just an analogy, but let’s hear it,” Lucas challenged.

“First of all, I’m not the one with the problem.  God has the problem – apparently – because he wants me to believe in him for some reason.  I personally don’t care if he believes in me – so that’s why I say it’s his problem.”

“You don’t think you have a problem??” Lucas asked with a bit of incredulity.

“Oh, I have plenty of problems – like that fact that my good friend Lucas wants me to believe in old fairy tales about miracles – but I’m not expecting God to solve them,” I said.

“Who’s going to solve your problems?”

“Hah hah!  Not you obviously,” I said.  “I’m going to solve my own problems – or at least I’m going to keep trying.  I’m just like everyone else.  We’re all in the same boat – including you – we are all responsible for solving our own problems.  If I wait for some mysterious deity to solve my problems, I’ll be waiting for a long time and my problems will just get worse.”

“I agree with you that everyone is responsible for themselves.  But there are some problems that we can’t solve ourselves – we need help.  I know you’re not a hermit – you need other people too.”  Then Lucas smiled, “like me – you couldn’t have such a stimulating lunch conversation on your own!”

“Eating a nice quiet lunch?  Doesn’t sound too bad,” I said, pretending to mull it over.  “And yes, I may need other people to help me, but it is my responsibility to go and ask for their help.”

“Well…you need someone to love you – that’s a basic need. And that requires another person to do something that you can’t control,” challenged Lucas.  “You can’t just go and ask them to love you.”

“Sounds like you’re getting into song lyrics,” I said, not wanting to give in, but feeling like this wasn’t really going the direction I wanted to take it.  “Anyway, that’s not the only problem with your analogy.  In fact, the biggest problem is that a doctor is not like your all-knowing God that you say exists.  Your analogy breaks down because any doctor, no matter how good they are and no matter what they think about themselves, they are not all-knowing,” I said.

Lucas smiled and I knew he was about to make some joke, but he didn’t.  “Go on,” he said.

“Well, the God you believe in apparently knows everything – right?  And if he knows everything, then I shouldn’t have to go to him to find out I have cancer.  He already knows I have cancer.  He should come and find me and just take care of it.  It would be a pretty mean God if he knows that I have cancer and doesn’t do something about it and just leaves me to die of it,” I said.

“That’s a great line of reasoning.  In that case, God should just keep you from getting cancer in the first place,” Lucas said.

“Sounds good to me,” I exclaimed.

“But obviously God doesn’t do that.  There is cancer.”  Lucas said.

Seemed like Lucas was setting his own trap.  “Thus proving that your God does not exist,” I exclaimed.

“No – your God does not exist.  The God I believe in obviously doesn’t act the way you think he does.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Well, you’re describing a God who is willing to force his way into people’s lives and take care of everything.  Obviously, no such God exists because there are plenty of things that are not “taken care of” in this world, including cancer.  However, one of the key characteristics of the God that Christians believe in is that he doesn’t force people to believe.  In fact, he waits for an invitation.”

“Hmmph.  That seems too convenient.  You get to pick whatever characteristics you want to ascribe to your God so that he can’t be discovered.”  That always bothered me.

“I didn’t pick those characteristics.  It’s fundamental to my beliefs.  In fact there are number of passages in the Bible that describe this very characteristic of God.  For example, Jesus said “I stand at the door and knock” and he waits to be let in. That perfectly illustrates my point.  God waits to be invited in.”

“Sounds weak to me,” I exclaimed.

“God is certainly strong enough to break down the door and come storming in.  But he chooses to wait for an invitation.  You can call that weak if you want.   I say that it sometimes requires more strength to exercise such restraint than it does just to barge on in,” Lucas said.

“OK – fine.  But that still doesn’t explain how it is reasonable for God, knowing I have cancer, not to even tell me,” I said, trying to get back to my main point.

“Actually God thinks – knows – that every human being has a problem much worse than cancer.  And he tries to tell you all, but you won’t listen.  The thing God does not do is keep yelling until you do listen.  If you want to listen, he’s there.  If you don’t want to listen, then, as I said at the beginning, that’s your problem.  He will not force himself.  It is beneath God to have to grovel to human beings.”

“OK.  I’ll listen.”  I paused for a mock dramatic moment of silence.  “I don’t hear anything.”

“Now we are finally getting somewhere!” Lucas said excitedly, surprising me a bit.  “That is exactly the point I’m trying to get you to see.  The first step in listening is for you to allow some crack in your “no miracles, no supernatural” view of the world.  You don’t hear anything because you’ve covered your ears.  Figuratively, I mean,” Lucas injected as I waved my hands away from my head showing my ears were, indeed open.  “You don’t really allow yourself to hear anything supernatural.  As long as you reject all means that God might use to get your attention, then he has no means of talking to you.  If he is not willing to force you to believe – and I believe he does not force anyone – then the next move is yours.”

It still seemed to me that this was all God’s problem.  But Lucas’ line of reasoning seemed reasonable on the face of it.  It all seemed like kind of a cosmic Catch 22.  I was going to have to think about it.

Lucas could see I was waffling a bit.  “Think about your relationship with your wife.  Can you force her to love you?”

“No – certainly not.”

“And even if you could force her to love you, what kind of love would that be?  God wants a relationship with each one of us.  But he wants a willing relationship.  Sure he could force us to do whatever he wants…but what kind of a relationship is that?  If God forces us to believe in him, what kind of belief is that?” Lucas asked.

“I see your point…” I said, still trying to think this thing through.  “…still seems highly convenient that God wiggles out of the blame.”

“I know you would like to be able to blame God for your unbelief but you really can't.  In fact, the reality is you don't really want a God that you could blame for your unbelief.  Such a God would be a controlling ogre,” Lucas said.  Then he continued, “How about if I just ask you to make this one change:  stop saying that it is God’s fault you don’t believe and start accepting some of the blame yourself.”

“Ouch.  Sounds harsh,” I said.

Lucas relaxed a bit and his face softened.  “Yeah, I’m sorry, it is a bit harsh.”  He paused for a moment.  “I think it’s time to eat.”

The corned beef arrived at the perfect time, as far as I was concerned.  Too much to take into consideration.

[...on to session VI...]

Construction Toys and the Universe

          I’ve always loved to construct things.  I had some Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs to build with when I was really little.  Lincoln Logs are fun, but there is not much you can build with notched logs other than a building of some sort.  Tinker Toys allow for more creativity.  But still – there are just some round hubs and some struts of different colors – after a while, you tire of them a bit.  After you’ve built the biggest tower you can make, then what?

          I’m not sure when I got my first Lego kit, but it must have been around grade school time.  The basic brick, though, isn’t much more useful than a Lincoln Log – it still is pretty much for buildings.  What really excited me about Legos was that they had gears.  Gears were, to me, the greatest things ever.  They are kind of magical.  You move one gear and that can cause a whole bunch of gears to move.  You can slow things down or speed things up.  There was nothing more exciting to me than a gear.  Well, that is, until I got my first motor!  Motors are even better.  You plug them in and they generate movement all by themselves!  No more need to crank things.  You can put together a creation, turn the motor on, and watch the whole thing come to life.  The excitement of creating something that can do “something on its own” still fascinates me to this day.  If I could build these things all day, I would.

          There was a great toy store in the town where I grew up that I loved to visit.  I would immediately go to the “construction toy” and “science toy” section.  On one such visit when I was in Junior High, I came across the greatest construction toy ever.  It was the ultimate – the Holy Grail of construction toys – and I immediately became obsessed with them.  These were the Fischertechnik kits.  Most kids in the U.S. have never heard of them probably.  They are made in Germany – in fact all of the instructions were in German for most of the kits.  But they are superior in every way to Legos – especially if you really like gears and motors and robotics.  They are superior…and more expensive…which was a problem.  I think my parents must have bought me one of the basic kits as a gift.  Here is the first kit I got: http://www.fischertechnik-museum.ch/museum/displayimage.php?album=3&pos=21.  Gears.  Pulleys.  Wheels.  They are interesting because it takes a little bit of learning to get the hang of how to assemble them together.  They are inherently three dimensional, unlike Legos which are inherently two dimensional.  They interlock in a manner that is solid (also unlike Legos, which always fall apart).  And the basic block looks just as boring as the basic Lego block:  a plastic rectangle with a knob on one end. 

          Once I got the hang of putting the Fischertechnik parts together and could build all of the example models in the first book, I was totally hooked.  I spent my time outside of school either trying to create new things with the parts I had, or else staring – meditating – at the back pages of the instruction booklet where it pictured all of the other kits available.  Whenever I worked mowing lawns or did other odd jobs, I spent that time calculating which kits I could buy with the money I was going to make.  Eventually I worked my way to getting the Hobby 3 kit (http://www.fischertechnik-museum.ch/museum/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=3 ), but I could never save enough money to get the famous (to me) Hobby 4 kit (http://www.fischertechnik-museum.ch/museum/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=4 )...something I surely dreamed about while in high school.  Oddly enough, I still don’t have that kit, though it does occasionally show up on ebay.

          One thing that made Fischertechnik kits so fascinating for me was the ability to bring motion into the things you constructed.  Motors of different kinds.  Then sensors.  Gears of all different styles – worm gears, gear track, planetary gears, conveyor belts…great stuff as far as I was concerned.  I’m old now, but I still have these kits.  Some days I think I’m more of a collector of these kits than someone who actually uses them.  Just don’t have time to “play” with them anymore.

          Because of my fascination with these types of kits, I began evaluating what made a “great” construction toy design.  One of my personal criteria is that a really well-designed construction toy should only require a limited number of parts.  What I mean is that you should be able to create other things by assembling the basic components together into a new component.  This is hard to do, and also very much against what the marketing arm of any company would suggest!  Thus, for example, most new Lego kits are themed and each kit is composed of many new and often unique parts in order to create, for example, a castle or a Star Wars scene or an excavator.  The fact that you have to have unique parts to create new things seems like somewhat of a “failure” to me.  If you had really well-designed basic parts, you should be able to create anything, right?  One construction toy that seems to follow this principle pretty well are K’nex.  Those toys came along when I was in college (and perpetually broke) so I never played with them until my kids had some.  But they tend to have a limited set of parts – connectors and rods of different lengths – that are used to make a lot of interesting things. 

          What’s the point of this bit of rambling?  It is just to think about the ultimate construction toy, and it meets my “limited number of parts” criteria in spades.  I’m talking about matter.  What are the parts you need?  There are only three:  electrons, protons, and neutrons.[1]  I find that incredibly fascinating.  If you’ve read anything on this blog, you know that I am a supernaturalist, so obviously I attribute the creative genius behind this “construction toy” to God.  But even if you are a complete naturalist, you can surely appreciate that, despite the incredible complexity and diversity in nature and in the universe, it can all be constructed with these three parts.  However, just for a second, imagine God, sitting at a big desk, getting ready to create the universe.  Personally, I kind of imagine it in the form of a Far Side cartoon.  God reaches over to his cabinet in which all of his parts are stored and – guess what? – the cabinet has only three big drawers labelled “electrons”, “protons”, and “neutrons!!”  I find that funny and amazing and completely fascinating all at once!  As a Far Side cartoon, I can just imagine the cartoon including God’s wife off to the side saying “Be careful with that – remember what happened last time when you starting pushing neutrons into that uranium molecule you made!” 

          As a supernaturalist, I believe there is at least one more part required to turn those three components into living things, and maybe at least one more part further still to turn those components into human beings, but that is for another story.  I just think it would be a lot of fun to sit down at a table and start assembling three little pieces into anything anyone could imagine.  That would be the greatest!

---

[1] I’m ignoring quantum physics here.  And why shouldn’t I?  Why should I listen to people who don’t know how to comb their hair and who can’t come up with better names for things than “quark” and “charm”???

The Flawed Decision-making Ability of Human Beings

“There is a way that people think is right, but it leads only to death.” Proverbs 14:2 (ERV)

          We have a higher opinion of our ability to make moral decisions than we should.  Actually, this relative “delusion” often extends to our ability to make logical decisions in general.  Elsewhere <here> I talked about the fact that even when we know the right thing to do, we don’t always do it.  But there is an even deeper issue that we all have, which is succinctly summarized in the Proverb above:  sometimes we think something is right - convinced of it even – but we are wrong. 

This is hard for us to accept.  We usually have a pretty good idea when other people are wrong.  We’d probably agree with the general concept that human beings are not perfect decision-makers on any topic, including moral decisions.  But when it comes to admitting that this principle applies to us – to me – well, then we get pretty defensive.  It’s easy for us to see the shortcomings in others – but when it comes to taking care of our own shortcomings, we become pretty blind.

          The point I want to make in this entry is to establish this principle:  we take a big risk when we decide to establish our own reason and feelings as the basis for determining right and wrong.  The risk is that we can be convinced that something is right, but “it leads only to death.”  In general we know the fundamentals of logic and reason.  We can think through situations and make good and correct decisions.  We have that ability.  But sometimes we just fail to make use of our innate abilities.  I’d like to make this point with three different illustrations of common human behavior.

         

          Example #1:  Our emotions and sensitivities can override our reason.  Want an obvious example of that?  Tailgating.  Driving 60 miles an hour and being 15 feet behind the car in front of you.  I’ve done quite a bit of driving in my day and I’ve driven from East coast to West coast.  And what I have observed is that at least 50% of you are chronic tailgaters.  Why is that?  There is not a shred of logic behind tailgating.  When it comes to weighing risk and benefit, it is all risk with zero benefit.  Do I really need to explain it?  But, for a variety of reasons, most people just can’t help themselves.  And it’s so easy to stop tailgating – just back off – but yet we still do it.  With tailgating, we are needlessly risking our own lives and the lives of those around us.  And I won’t even mention things like texting and driving or drunk driving.  If we can’t be trusted to use our reason properly in something so common and so simple, how can we really trust ourselves in bigger, more complex, decisions?

Example 2:  Our perspective bias – we see what we want to see.  Plenty of examples of this can be found in the world of sports.  In particular, I’m talking about fans of sports teams. People root for the sports teams of their choice and their views are totally influenced by their “fandom.”  A group of people see the same play but the fans on one side say that there was a foul and the fans on the other side say there was no foul.  Isn’t it clear that some people’s view of what did or didn’t happen is clouded by their biases as a fan?

          I’m a big Cleveland Indians fan.  As a result, I see things related to my team in a favorable light.  I still think that the Atlanta Braves pitching staff got too generous of a strike zone in the ’95 World Series.  If you’re a Braves fan, I’m sure you saw it differently (and by now you surely don’t care).  This type of disagreement occurs daily in sports.  Fans on one side say “that was obviously the worst call ever” and fans on the other side say “there is no question that was the right call.”  Well, they can’t all be right – but they are all convinced that they are right.  Totally convinced.  This just illustrates how we are so easily biased by our own situation, our own environment, our own family and friends.  This is one big reason why we can’t always trust ourselves as the final decision-maker about right and wrong.  We will often be too lenient on our friends and too harsh on our enemies (or, sometimes, vice versa!).  And, worst of all, we will almost always be too lenient on ourselves.

Example #3: We can say we believe something when we don’t really believe it.  It’s just another fact of human nature:  we can all be hypocrites sometimes.  I think it might be one of those unique qualities of human beings.  I think we all have things that, if someone asked us, we would say we believe with great confidence, yet our actions would prove otherwise.   Case in point:  “everything is relative.”  I don’t mean in “relative” as in physics, but relative in moral issues.  I know plenty of people that would deny that there are any moral absolutes.  They would argue the issue for hours – vehemently.  Yet, at the same time, they would also stand strongly on moral statements such as “it’s wrong to judge others” or “you can’t tell me what is wrong for me.”  These are absolute truths that they, in actual practice, live by.  They say “there are no absolutes”, but they live as if there are.

Of course, the moral relativists don’t have the corner on hypocrisy.  Those who stand staunchly on various moral absolutes can be the biggest hypocrites of all.  Just observe their actions!  Do they always do what they say?  It happens all the time that those who speak out against some great “sin” or other are then found to violate that very issue. 

Be honest people:  we’re all big hypocrites!

          We have to make decisions about what is right and wrong on a daily basis.  We are faced with choices – we can’t avoid that – and we have to respond, even if the way we respond is to do nothing.  All I want to conclude in this entry is that if we rely on our own great impeccable innate ability to determine what is right and wrong…well, we’re going to make some mistakes.  No – probably a lot of mistakes.  We’re just not as good at this as we think we are.

Lunches with Lucas – Session IV

<This is part of an ongoing conversation.  To go to the first conversation, click here>

I was a bit intrigued by my last conversation with Lucas, and I was kind of interested to know where he was going with the points he was making.  Interested, I would say, in the same way you are interested to see an accident up ahead.  Curious is maybe a better word.  And I knew Lucas well enough that I thought I could just get straight to the point and he wouldn’t be put off by that.

I sat down across from Lucas for lunch.  “Lucas, it really seems to me that you’ve been trying to drive to some big point…so just get to it – what is the point to this discussion about miracles and natural events and so on?”

“OK – fine.  You asked,” Lucas smiled.  “I want you to tell God – no – tell Jesus - to do a miracle in your life, I want you to see the miracle, and, as a result, I want you to completely and fully commit yourself to following Jesus for the rest of your life”, he said, fairly matter-of-factly.

Maybe I should have let him keep building up slowly!  “You can’t be serious,” I said, searching his expression.

“Well…maybe I shouldn’t have gone so far,” he said, backtracking a bit.  “Really, all I’m asking is that you change your worldview from “there is no such thing as miracles” to “miracles are extremely unlikely but can’t be ruled out.”

I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily.  “Wait a minute - what about this “tell God what to do” thing you just said?”

Now he was in a full retreat.  “OK, look, I overstated my point to try to get you to think about what I have been challenging you with.  Obviously you can’t tell God what to do.”

“Actually, Lucas, you can tell God what to do,” I said, feeling a bit proud that I could make a point about spiritual things.  “People tell God what to do all the time.  The problem is that there is no God to hear anyone, so that is why nothing happens.”  I figured if Lucas could be blunt, so could I.

“OK – I’m sorry I brought it up.  And not to belabor the point, but it’s not true that ‘nothing happens’ when you talk to God,” Lucas said, belaboring the point.  “Lots of people have asked God to do something and he has done it.”

“Yah, well, lots of people have asked God to do something and he hasn’t done it.  That proves nothing,” I said.

“That’s a valid point.  But the problem is that no matter what God does, you’ve set up a situation where you can always rule out the possibility that God exists.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Let me put it this way:  can you design an experiment that you could do that would cause you to believe in God…or, again, more specifically, Jesus?”

“How can you do an experiment with God – you just said you can’t tell God what to do,” I asked.

“My point is that if such an experiment were designed, it would certainly have to involve a miracle, and you don’t accept that there can be any such a thing as a miracle.  Therefore, you reject God and no amount of evidence would ever change your mind,” Lucas challenged.

“Evidence?  There is no evidence,” I challenged back.

“What I mean is that you are unwilling to put your lack of belief in God to a test because you have eliminated all possible ways God could reveal himself to you a priori.”

“Unwilling?  I didn’t say I was unwilling to see evidence – I just don’t see any,” I said.

“Sorry – wrong word choice.  It’s more that you prevent God from revealing himself to you because you have eliminated all possible ways God could do that.”

“Whatever.  I don’t see what you’re getting at.  I feel like we’re going in circles.”  Hadn’t he said this before?  Besides, it didn’t make any sense to me that any human being could “prevent” his so-called God from doing anything.  But I didn’t want to bring that up and prolong the conversation.

“So – what about my challenge?” Lucas said, ignoring my comment.  “Consider just changing your worldview from “there is no such thing as a miracle” to “miracles are extremely unlikely but can’t be ruled out.  Then people like me can no longer say that you’ve ruled God out without ever giving him a chance.”

On the face of it, it seemed like a small change but I wanted to stall him.  I wasn’t ready to change anything.  Why should I change?  I was winning the argument.  “I hate the word ‘worldview’” I said, stalling.  But I really did hate that word.

“You’re just stalling,” he said, recognizing what I was doing.  “So, then, how about changing your ‘philosophy of life’ to include the remote possibility of a miracle, or, more specifically, intentional divine intervention?” he asked.

“Well, it would have to be a really really really remote possibility,” I countered.

“Of course.  Almost by definition, a miracle has to be very rare – extremely rare – otherwise it kind of becomes just a natural event,” Lucas agreed.

I had to admit that there was some logic in what he was asking me to do.  “OK.  I will take it under consideration,” I said.

“No problem,” Lucas smiled, “let me make the decision harder for you.”

“Oh great,” I said, a bit surprised.

“You recall our conversation about the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ?” Lucas asked.

“Not much.  To be honest, it’s not something I’ve committed to memory.  I mean, how can you present ‘evidence’ for something that doesn’t exist?  I thought we agreed to put that aside.” 

“Hah!  You do remember – or at least you remember that we agreed not to talk about it again.  But you didn’t listen to my arguments because you’d already decided that a resurrection can’t happen – it never happens.

“Sounds about right,” I said.  “Case closed,” I added, hoping he would move on.

“Well…if you change your philosophy of life to allow for the very remote possibility of miracles, then you’re going to have to consider those arguments.  Previously you didn’t care what I said about it – because you had already eliminated the possibility of any miracle ever happening – particularly someone rising from the dead.  But now, even if the possibility if very very remote, you can’t just reject the concept off-hand like you did before.”

“Well, I haven’t changed my mind,” I said, almost adding “yet” but decided not to.  “Is this whole discussion part of some grand plan of yours to bring up that whole conversation about the evidence for the resurrection again?  Count me out.”

“No, no, I promised I wouldn’t bring that up again, so I won’t,” Lucas said, then paused.  “Unless you ask,” he added, smiling.

“Well, that’s not happening.  So let’s move on.  It’s time to eat.”

“Yes, we can move on.  But I still want you to consider allowing for the remote possibility of miracles.”

“Do you ever give up?”  I was a bit tired of this, but couldn’t think of a good reason not to crack.  “If I agree, will you let me eat?”

“If you agree, I’ll pay for lunch!  But I’m serious.  This is a big decision…I know it’s not as simple as it sounds.”  Lucas said, backing off a bit.

“You’re right.  I’ll take it under consideration,” I said.  But I had no intention of considering it. 

I picked up my corned beef sandwich and changed the subject. 

[...on to Session V...]

Lunches with Lucas – Session III

 <Link to Session I>

         As I stepped into the restaurant, I saw that Lucas was already at our accustomed table.  That was pretty unusual, as usually I was the one who arrived first.  As I approached the table, I could see that he appeared to be talking to himself.

          “Hey Lucas,” I said, “who are you talking to?”

          “Oh – hi – I was just talking to God here,” he said, motioning to the empty chair.

          I thought about leaving, just to teach him a lesson.  “It’s an empty chair…”

          “Why can’t God be invisible?” Lucas asked.

          “That’s so childish.  God could be a chair, too, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

          “You’re right, that is kind of childish on my part.  But last time you talked about God appearing to you in this chair and said that would be enough to believe.  Isn’t that a little childish also – or at least a little selfish?”  Lucas asked.

          “What do you mean ‘selfish’?” I asked, taking my seat.

          “Well, it’s seems like you’ve only answered the question as if you were the only person that God needed to worry about,” Lucas said, drawing out the word ‘only’.  “If God’s going to do a miracle so that you will believe, doesn’t he have to do the same miracle for everyone else as well?  Otherwise, it’s just not fair and I know that you’re very worried about God being fair.”

          “Sure – what’s the problem with that?  God can appear in chairs to everyone, and then everyone would believe in him and I guess that would make him happy and you happy,” I retorted.

          “But that’s way too glib.  You aren’t really seriously thinking that through.  That whole concept just doesn’t work.  You think it is childish that I would say that God is in that chair but he’s just invisible, and you’re right – it’s childish.  But so is saying that if God appeared in chairs to everyone, it would make everyone believe in him,” Lucas said.

         

          “Childish?  You’re the one who believes in some God that you’ve never seen!” I exclaimed.

          “All I’m asking is that you give your ‘appear in a chair’ a little more serious consideration.  God is not just concerned about you.  If there is a God anything like the one I believe in, then he is concerned about everyone – and that includes everyone who has ever lived and everyone who ever will live.  So if he’s going to get people to believe in him by appearing in chairs, he has to do it for everyone over the whole history of mankind,” Lucas said.

          “OK.  I don’t see a problem with that.”

          “You don’t see a problem with creating some event that has always happened and always will happen?  Such an event would not be considered a miracle – it would just be a ‘natural’ event – like the sun rising every morning,” Lucas stated.

          “It’s not natural for anything to just appear in a chair,” I countered.

          “No, but it would be if it had always happened and always did happen.  That is almost the very definition of a natural event.  What else could you call it?  I mean if your requested ‘miracle’ had been ‘I want a being to appear behind me on the ground whenever I walk around’ and it was something that had always happened, then you would just call it a ‘shadow’, not a miracle,” Lucas said.

          “But that makes my point.  A shadow is a perfectly natural event.  There is a clear scientific, natural explanation for why a shadow appears.  It’s not magic.  It’s not a miracle.  It’s nature.  Are you trying to prove the existence of God using shadows??” I asked, a bit incredulous.

          “Of course not,” Lucas said.  “I’m just trying to point out that no event, no matter how shocking, is going to be sufficient for you to believe in God if it is something that happens all the time.  You will always have a ‘natural’ explanation for it.”

          “Of course I will.  That is because there is only nature.  But if your God does a miracle, then there won’t be an explanation for it,” I countered.

          “What?  Did you just imply that if there is something that happens that cannot be explained by science, you would consider it a miracle?”

          I realized I was on shaky ground.  But Lucas continued without waiting for my response.  “Then how about human consciousness?  It’s not explainable by science and it is something that has always happened and probably always will happen.  It is something that every human being experiences.  Seems like a perfect miracle to show God’s existence.”

          “You love to bring up human consciousness, but that is hardly evidence for the existence of God.  We are close to understanding it – we will eventually figure it out,” I said.

          “Ah, it’s an AYUNE,” Lucas said with a smile.

          “There you go making up words again.”

          “As-yet-unexplained-natural-event,” Lucas said.

          “I know – you told me before.  But consciousness will be explained,” I said.

          “Well, I might debate that – I don’t think neuroscience is even close to explaining human consciousness.  But that’s not my point.  My point is that even if some event were to be unexplainable, you would never consider it to be a miracle,” Lucas said.

          “You’re right.  And I think I’m being pretty logical if I consider natural events to be natural events and don’t ascribe any supernatural meaning to them,” I said with an air of finality.

          “Right.  So the point is that, if God wants to prove himself to you, he cannot use any natural, repeated events, even if they are completely unexplained by modern science.  Any kind of event that he might do to demonstrate his existence, if he does it fairly for every person who has ever lived or ever will live, will be relegated to being described as a natural event.  So, as far as your views are concerned, natural events are ‘out’ for God.  You will not allow God to use them to prove his existence,” Lucas said.

          “I wouldn’t use the term ‘relegated’, but, yes, I think you are summarizing my views pretty well.  Natural events are natural, not supernatural…and you can’t try to turn them into supernatural events by saying they are unexplainable.  You Christians claim that all sorts of natural events are signs of the supernatural, like when someone recovers from cancer or something like that.  It makes no sense.  I don’t see how you can claim that natural events are the evidence for any supernatural being,” I said.

          “I get you.  I think there are Christians who ascribe supernatural significance to natural events without good evidence.  But a lot of that has to do with your starting point.  I don’t really want to get into that.  I want you to try to think about your situation from God’s viewpoint,” Lucas said, looking for some approval from me.

          “Sounds a bit strange – what do you mean?” I asked.

          “I mean, let’s say you were God and you wanted to get ‘you’ to believe – how would you do it?  If you, as God, attempt to perform some supernatural event for every person for all time, ‘you’ would just say ‘that’s a natural event.’  But ‘you’ also don’t accept that there is such a thing as a miracle, so God can’t do that either.  So what is left?  You’ve blocked out every avenue for God to show himself to you and then you stand back and say it is God’s fault for now showing himself to you,” Lucas challenged.

          I needed to think that through a bit, so I tried to put him off for now.  “OK, maybe that’s how it is.  But if your God is so great, he ought to be able to figure it out,” I countered.

          Lucas was on a roll, though.  “It’s like you’re saying to God ‘show yourself’ but then you cover your eyes.  Or you say to God ‘speak to me’ and then you cover your ears.  If you were God, why would you even bother?  If someone doesn’t want to know God with that level of intensity, then why would God bother?  Seems to me that it’s your problem, not God’s problem.”

         

          I didn’t want to talk about this further.  “Fine.  It’s my problem.  So leave me alone with my problem and let’s talk about something else.”

          Lucas nodded.  “OK – let’s eat.  All I’m asking is that you think about it from God’s perspective.  I’ll leave it at that.”

          And with that he took a big bite of his sandwich.  Despite his goofy examples, I felt he probably did make a pretty good point.  But I didn’t want to think about it too much – it was time for lunch.

[...on to Session IV...]