godtalketc

Conversations concerning public expressions and involvement of the evangelical community.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Perhaps one way of thinking about sin is to consider that all sin is in reality idolatry--giving ultimacy to something temporal. And all objective reality is temporal, whether it be a person, a thing, a relationship, an idea, a doctrine, a particular theology, a religious experience, ad infinitum. Only God, of course, is ultimate, and not simply God considered objectively as a person, but God as the Unseen Reality behind, before, and beneath all seen reality. Our sin is to make things seen ultimate rather than allowing them to point to the Unseen Reality of God. In faith the seen and experienced world serves as a sacrament to point us to God, and through which to experience God. In unfaith, or sin, we make the seen and experienced world the ultimate. In lay persons' terms, we make the things we hold in our hands and in our minds God, rather than allowing them to point us to God. "In Him we live, move and have our being." "While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are unseen; for the things which are seen are temporary but the things which are unseen eternal." "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." It is a mindset that faith must develop continually: ever looking beyond the seen world and all its experiences to the Unseen Reality of God.