Three Operating Conditions of Belief

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Continuing my reading of the second chapter of Thinking. Loving. Doing. A Call to Glorify God with Heart and Mind, I stumbled again with another brilliant insight written by R. Albert Mohler Jr. This time he is sharing about the "three operating conditions of belief in Western civilization" (p. 62). He took this insight from Charles Taylor's book, A Secular Age. According to the book, the three operating conditions of belief are the impossibility of disbelief in God, the possibility of disbelief in God, and the impossibility of belief in God. 


The impossibility of disbelief in God characterized the pre-modern era. The word atheist at that time didn't exist, because it "was not an available category" (ibid.). The existence of God is the underlying assumption of the age though different concepts of God were recognized.  


With the advent of the modern era, the operating condition of belief shifted from the impossibility of disbelief to the possibility of disbelief in the existence of God.


Now that we are living in the post-modern age, it is necessary for Christians to understand the current operating condition of the unbelieving mind. The current operating condition now is the impossibility of belief in the existence of God. What is surprising in Mohler's observation is that he thinks that most people still remain in the first two categories except those who are involved in higher education. This means that the higher people climb into the ladder of academic pursuit, the greater the tendency for their operating condition of belief to change from the possibility of disbelief to the impossibility of belief in the existence of God. 


What do you think? Is Taylor accurate in his description of the post-modern age? If he is, what can we learn from this insight in relation to Christian witness?       



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People of Wisdom (Proverbs 1)

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"Wisdom cries  aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks" (Proverbs 1:20-21).  Reading verses like the above tells us that the kind of faith taught in the Bible is not something private. This is contrary to what most people think today saying that when you talk about the things of God or matters of religion, you should keep it personally either in your home or in your local church, or you just talk about it during Sunday.  The introductory chapter of the book of Proverbs tells us that wisdom calls in public space. This teaches us that the whole of society cannot escape the call of God. To ignore such call will certainly reap disastrous consequences.  How about if the people of God Himself who supposed to live such wisdom are the ones undermining it? We do this either by disconnecting our faith from our public lives or by consenting to the ruling social norms thinking t
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The Special Duties of Husbands to their Wives

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Fulfill your duties to your wife in order to avoid the following unhappy results: Failure of your wife to fulfill her duties towards you Such will cause you much affliction She will be bitter towards you in the end Summary of your Duties as Christian Husbands: You are responsible to undertake the government of your family including your wife. This ability consists: In holiness and spiritual wisdom. An ungodly, irreligious man is both a stranger and an enemy to the most important part of family-government. In due acquaintance with the works of your calling. He that is utterly unacquainted with the members of his family, will be very unfit to govern them. He must be acquainted both with the common temper and infirmities of mankind, that he may know how much is to be borne with, and also with the particular temper, and faults, and virtues of those whom he is to govern. And he must have prudence to give them direction in accomplishing their tasks; and justice to deal with every one as they
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Ownership

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The first chapter is all about ownership. By discussing this topic, the author starts with the doctrine of creation. For him, this doctrine separates his approach from all other approaches by other economists. By insisting on the importance of the doctrine of creation to economics, he argues that the universe, man, economic laws, and economic growth are not autonomous. The doctrine of creation establishes the idea of original ownership , which belongs to God alone as explicitly stated in Psalm 24:1–2 and many other biblical passages. And since it is God who created the world, He is therefore the original and absolute Owner of everything. The idea therefore of ownership is basically theocentric. This tells us that the economic concept of ownership is ultimately a theological idea. The concept of ownership cannot be properly understood apart from God as the ultimate Owner of all things. Providence is another corollary doctrine that cannot be separated from the doctrine of creation. Thi
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