Whilst ironing shirts yesterday I multi-tasked watching the science-fiction classic produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is by modern sensibilities an incredibly slow film - I mean, who ever heard of beginning a movie with minutes of black screen? Hearing the score took me back to when I took "music listening" in university (amazing, I know) and being introduced to "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss.
During this viewing I was struck with the "Dawn of Man" segment of the film. Image after image shows a desolate, barren land. Birds are heard and people dressed as primates portrays man's predecessors loosely according to Darwinian evolution. I wonder if the writers of the film ever read G.K. Chesterton's book The Everlasting Man...but I digress. These squatting, grunting, primates, fiercely protective of the scrubby plants they claimed, are supposedly our bone-swinging ancestors. They had the sense, developed over time, to notice and take interest in a black obelisk which suddenly appeared near their cave. I am amazed the fact all manner of life teems on this planet does not provoke the curiosity and awe today of sensible human beings. We are a living, breathing, thinking type of obelisk created and planted on earth in the image of the God who created us, evidence we have been made by an all-powerful and intelligent being who speaks, hears, knows, and loves.
Yes, that is right: loves. In the film the savage primates hoot, shriek, gnaw, and kill - and man's violent tendencies and selfishness does not improve with time. Man created computers who malfunctioned and killed, and man bent on self-preservation shut down all threats. A purely naturalistic explanation of origins cannot explain how love arose from those violent savages who brutalised one another to the death in primitive turf battles. The evolutionary worldview absolutely deifies and celebrates death, for it is the only path towards advancement. And the film (honest men too) struggle under the weight there must be something or someone greater and more advanced than man to help the process along from time to time: benevolent but distant; unknown to men but longed for; dangerous but to be pursued at great cost.
In the film scientists and doctors travelled great distances through space to examine evidence of extraterrestrial life, and the irony is God has revealed Himself in the Bible as transcendent of all space and time. His glory fills the heavens and reaches far beyond life on the earth, yet man largely remains unmoved at the revelation. We search the heavens for evidence of life but we think very little of the life all around us. In the film primate shouted in fear and shock at the unnatural black obelisk planted in barren soil and we blindly assume life on earth must have occurred without a thought. Romans 1:20-23 speaks the truth exquisitely: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."
Man has done amazing feats on land, under water, and in space - and not without help. God has graciously helped us to live, think, know, and discover a great many things about this world He has made, and yet He remains to many unknown, unwanted, and unnecessary. We deserve to be regarded as such in the light of God's glory, but He loves us with an everlasting love which reaches back before the heavens and earth were created. When we glorify and acknowledge God for who He is we begin to lay hold of His wisdom and experience His love. There is an irreconcilable difference between all other living creatures on earth and mankind, for God has made us in His image with a moral conscience, a will beyond instinct, and knowledge. Jesus, the everlasting man of whom G.K. Chesterton and the Bible speaks, is irreconcilably beyond mortal men as God made flesh. He is the source of all life, and He gives everlasting life to all who trust in Him as LORD and Saviour. How good it is to be loved by Him!
During this viewing I was struck with the "Dawn of Man" segment of the film. Image after image shows a desolate, barren land. Birds are heard and people dressed as primates portrays man's predecessors loosely according to Darwinian evolution. I wonder if the writers of the film ever read G.K. Chesterton's book The Everlasting Man...but I digress. These squatting, grunting, primates, fiercely protective of the scrubby plants they claimed, are supposedly our bone-swinging ancestors. They had the sense, developed over time, to notice and take interest in a black obelisk which suddenly appeared near their cave. I am amazed the fact all manner of life teems on this planet does not provoke the curiosity and awe today of sensible human beings. We are a living, breathing, thinking type of obelisk created and planted on earth in the image of the God who created us, evidence we have been made by an all-powerful and intelligent being who speaks, hears, knows, and loves.
Yes, that is right: loves. In the film the savage primates hoot, shriek, gnaw, and kill - and man's violent tendencies and selfishness does not improve with time. Man created computers who malfunctioned and killed, and man bent on self-preservation shut down all threats. A purely naturalistic explanation of origins cannot explain how love arose from those violent savages who brutalised one another to the death in primitive turf battles. The evolutionary worldview absolutely deifies and celebrates death, for it is the only path towards advancement. And the film (honest men too) struggle under the weight there must be something or someone greater and more advanced than man to help the process along from time to time: benevolent but distant; unknown to men but longed for; dangerous but to be pursued at great cost.
In the film scientists and doctors travelled great distances through space to examine evidence of extraterrestrial life, and the irony is God has revealed Himself in the Bible as transcendent of all space and time. His glory fills the heavens and reaches far beyond life on the earth, yet man largely remains unmoved at the revelation. We search the heavens for evidence of life but we think very little of the life all around us. In the film primate shouted in fear and shock at the unnatural black obelisk planted in barren soil and we blindly assume life on earth must have occurred without a thought. Romans 1:20-23 speaks the truth exquisitely: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."
Man has done amazing feats on land, under water, and in space - and not without help. God has graciously helped us to live, think, know, and discover a great many things about this world He has made, and yet He remains to many unknown, unwanted, and unnecessary. We deserve to be regarded as such in the light of God's glory, but He loves us with an everlasting love which reaches back before the heavens and earth were created. When we glorify and acknowledge God for who He is we begin to lay hold of His wisdom and experience His love. There is an irreconcilable difference between all other living creatures on earth and mankind, for God has made us in His image with a moral conscience, a will beyond instinct, and knowledge. Jesus, the everlasting man of whom G.K. Chesterton and the Bible speaks, is irreconcilably beyond mortal men as God made flesh. He is the source of all life, and He gives everlasting life to all who trust in Him as LORD and Saviour. How good it is to be loved by Him!
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