Creation's Cache #8

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.                    John Muir

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit - this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.  Ashley Smith

 The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.                      Albert Einstein

     What stops a man from killing his neighbour in order to take his car? Why, if we see something we want, that will make our lives 'better', why do we not just take it? When someone stands in my way, why don't I just push him out of it? Why do people all across the world understand the principles of justice, honour, compassion and loyalty?
     Why did the Romans have a system of democracy? Why are politicians expected to account for their expenses? Why do we expect them to be honest? Why do I share in the washing up? Why do we exchange insurance details after a crash and not simply just drive away?
     Huuuum. I wonder.

     Where did this sense of morality come from? Where, in the long process of survival-of-the-fittest, did we stop looking out for ourselves and start looking out for others? At what point did apes start to give to charitable causes? When did men start feeling this strange sensation called "guilt". When did we decide that certain actions- although they make us richer, stronger, more powerful- are not acceptable? Was it in the 20th Century? Or did "honour" and "justice" exist before that? Was it the founding fathers of America who began the trend? Was it in the 1500s? Or did Chivalry exist before that? Was it during the Saxons era? Is that when morality began? No, Greek literature is full of stories of bravery and hope and honour. What about the Egyptians? The Mesopotamians?
       Why weren't these "moral" people wiped out by the self-preservationists? Why weren't they killed when they acted in kindness? Why weren't their homes and possessions stolen from their charitable arms?
       Huuuuum. I wonder.

     Maybe..... maybe, just maybe, the Creator of this world, the Lord of the Universe, instilled a sense of morality, a glimmer of what is right, into the hearts and minds of mankind- the pinnacle of his creation.
      Ever felt the pang of your conscience? I have. My guilt and my conscience are not imagined things. I certainly didn't mix them up and bring them into being. Why would I, naturally speaking, want a force inside of me that stops me doing what I want? Why would anyone? God put them inside of me. He put barriers in each one of us; check points which warn us when we stray from right and into wrong. When culture is stripped away, all of mankind has the same basic law imprinted on them. C.S. Lewis uses the example of Witchcraft to show this point:
One might argue that in the middle ages people were burned as witches. A 21st Century Government would be laughed to scorn if it attempted to arrest "witches". Therefore "morality" has changed, and is not a definite set law. However if we believed, in our modern culture, that people existed who made sacrifices to demonic powers, who performed disgusting and cruel rituals and caused harm and injury to others, then they would demand that they were locked in a high security prison!
      So, morality doesn't change like culture does. Right and Wrong are not flexible principles, they are specific and unchangeable facts.
      A famous philosopher once said:

I think therefore I am.

     One of his contemporaries went one step further:

I think, therefore thinking exists. 

     Perhaps I can make my own assertion:

God is, therefore good is.

      Those who claim that "Everything is true" or "Everyone is right" condemn themselves by their own arguments! If everything is right then nothing is! If what everyone believes is true "for them" then those who believe that they are 'exclusively right' must also be right! That is a paradox that cannot exist!
      But I digress. My point is this: we all know that certain things are 'right' and certain things are 'wrong'. We have been formed with a sense of morality.

      Why is this so important? Because it shows us that there is something more, something deeper, than simply the external. This world, although amazingly beautiful, vast, majestic and just astounding, is only one layer. There is more to creation that what we can see, hear, taste or smell. God has made us as spiritual beings. Unlike the animals, we know 'good' and 'bad'. The Psalmist sees more than simply the beauty of the sky when he says this:

The heavens proclaim his righteousness,

and all the peoples see his glory.

God's goodness, or righteousness, is clearly seen in his creation, the Psalmist saw it and so can we. Romans 1 tells us that God is clearly visible.