John Eldredge. Epic - A review

I won't have too many spoilers in this review, and it is pretty clear from the description (let alone the title!) that John Eldredge attempts to demonstrate how our lives form a part of God's great story, and this story itself is continuously replayed in all of the great works of art, movies and books. Understanding the dynamics of this ever unfolding plot, according to Eldredge, is absolutely crucial to anyone who desires to live a full life in God.

It has always been my feeling that all great books and poems essentially tell the same story. However, this story is not an epic. Instead it is a tragedy. The very purpose of epic literature, as far as I can tell, is to initiate a new member into a society. A classic epic, such as the Iliad or the Aeneid informs the reader of his race's great past, puts within his reach his ancestors' customs, beliefs and even their wisdom. What a classic epic story does not attempt to achieve is producing a visible renewal of the reader's heart, a complete regeneration of his inner self. In technical terms, the epic narrative is not meant to provide the reader with catharsis. That would be tragedy's job. I am afraid that having misidentified the broad genre of the Universe's plot, John Eldredge severely downgraded this great story. When placed on the same level with a vast array of modern books and feature movies Christianity probably gains appeal in the eyes of a casual movie-goer, but it loses any trace of uniqueness and meaning. Seriously, why not worship Gladiator or Frodo instead of Christ? Isn't all the same story anyway? As a result, Epic becomes an excellent example of post-modern Evangelism which is happy to present its narrative to the secular world, in hopes that the world will stick around for a while and maybe even share in it, but this is where everything ends. This version of the Christian faith will not even consider asserting itself as the one true religion.

John Elderedge Epic: The Story God Is Telling

Existence of God: Watchmaker argument

Rick Warren tells the story about being invited to an academic conference where he felt as if a trap had been set up for him, because he was seated smack in between a couple of hard-core atheists. In the end, it turned out not so bad, and Rick ended up saying to these fellows that he envies their faith. He said, "When I am walking in the mountains and see a Rolex watch I simply cannot believe that it came about as a result of natural events, rather than having being designed."

The so called Watchmaker argument is used very often and it does serve some purpose - the complexity of creation is something to be considered when the idea of God the Creator is being questioned. Evolutionist understanding of the origin of life inevitably involves some form of random play, a coming together of resources and circumstances that creates a living organism, no matter how primitive. It must be understood, however, that a watch simply pales in comparison with the complexity of the most insignificant living beings. I, for one, am quite willing to believe that over a very long period of time particles of matter can every once in a while form a primitive time-keeping device. Why not? All it takes is some source of continuous energy and a visible way for this energy to cause some object to move at a constant rate. I am even willing to throw in a crude clock face or a scale. Of course, this watch would not last long and it would not be as sophisticated as any of the human made watches, not to mention its accuracy. But I absolutely must decline any invitation to believe that pure chance can cause the existence of a time-keeping device that would conform to the following criteria:

• It must be able to self-diagnose its own structure, in as much as it relates to the purposes of time-keeping.
• It must be able to receive information from the outside world, as far as it relates to the purposes of time-keeping.
• It must be able to convert the data about itself and about relevant conditions in the outside world into some form of a record accessible by the next generation of time-keeping devices.
• It must be able to either reproduce, split into two separate time-keeping devices or perish in such a way that its remains can be successfully used by the next chance-generated clock or watch. (Personally, I think that splitting the device into two or more parts is the easiest way to preserve information about the whole, without storing a separate DNA-like record. But is it really that easy? If you cut a clock in half how will you get both parts working even though there is probably enough information left over about the initial design?) The next generation device must resemble the original device, as far as its time-keeping functions are concerned. If we want natural selection to kick in at some point, the number of devices, as a rule, must not decline with each generation.

If someone is willing to see chance as a capable agent of events described above, be my guest. But the most difficult thing to explain, in my opinion, is why on earth in any of the next generations we would see the appearance of additional features, such as an alarm with a snooze button. I think that without allowing the possibility of design it is simply necessary to introduce chance at every each step.