Speculum et Lavacrum

The Idol of Success and the Search for Meaning
(Chapter 4 of Timothy Keller's book, "Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters)

High School drop outs... drug and sex addicted fathers... Mothers popping anti depression pills like candy... Suicidal CEOs... percentage rates of celebrities getting pregnant... the average individual is 30,000 dollars in debt or more... Pastors and missionaries leaving the ministry at all time highs... Churches with Rock bands, movie sermon summers, women pastors, Homosexual Bishops and Pastors, paraphrase Bibles, Bible for golfers, Bible for Navy, The Green Bible, The Magazine New Testament, The Special Nascar Edition Bible... Pastors are teaching self help instead of the Gospel, excommunication and church membership are now for the “religious fundamentalists”... and the list goes on. These examples are just merely symptoms of a much more dangerous disease that is plaguing our culture?

Influences:

• Post-Modernity/Relativism

• Privatization

• Individualism

• Self-Esteem

Results:

• Selfish

• Dichotomized/Dual Standard

• Narcissistic

• No Value/Integrity/Standards/Moral

Ravi Zacharias~ “Self aggrandizement breeds a sense of entitlement, entitlements unfulfilled give birth to catastrophic means of procurement – the ramifications are immense.”

If there is no God, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you will die. However, if you're going to live this way consistently, then do what ever it takes to get to the that point where YOU want to be. For if man is merely an automaton of drives and reactions and nothing more, then success is one of the greatest values to be had, for it is the way of a relentless, time plus chance universe. It is the survival of the fittest, tooth and claw, you must survive, and in this kind of a world, there is no such thing as right and wrong. Right and wrong are merely subjective social constructs that were set in place by the middle class to subject you to their pathetic peeon whims. Ethics are merely arbitrary, and should therefore be disposed of. There is no middle ground, there is no neutrality. Fight for all this meaningless existence is worth.

Frederick Nietzsche~ “Equality is a lie concocted by the inferior people who arrange themselves in herds to over power those who are naturally superior to them. The morality of equal rights is herd mentality because it opposes the cultivation of superior individuals. It leads to the corruption of the human species.”

Nietzsche was a naturalist who was merely functioning according to the logical out workings of his own philosophy.

J.L. Mackie (Atheist)~ “We might well argue that objective, intrinsically prescriptive features supervenient upon natural ones constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations, that they are most unlikely to have arisen in any ordinary course of events without an all powerful God to create them.”

Richard Dawkins~ “In a universe of blind physical force and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any ryme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe as we observe has precicely the properties we should expect if at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares, DNA just is, and we dance to its music.”

Ravi Zacharias~ “To what lies have we been subjected? On ever side I see the glare of billboards promising that happiness lies in the next car or the next house. Educators promise that if we only tell our children about sex we will reduce the rate of teen pregnancy and the threat of venereal disease. Social workers promise that drug education will remove this scourge from our continent if we will “just say no.” Politicians promise that technology and communication will lead to a better understanding and to peace. Law makers promise that new laws will eradicate racial tensions. Now we are promised that if we would only get God out of education and get the Creator out of the scheme of things we will all be better for it. But the duplicity that has emerged from political leaders, legal tacticians, and, for that matter, even from some purveyors of religion has left a generation of young people apathetic, cynical, and even fearful. (Can Man Live Without God? p.94)

C.S. Lewis portrays these lies along with others, in his work, “The Abolition of Man” as that which has created a culture of men without chests. Men who stand for nothing except themselves.

Viktor Frankl~“If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present him as an automation of reflexes, as a mind machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone. I became acquainted with with the last stage of corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment—or, as the Nazis liked to say, “of blood and soil.” I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.” (WWII survivor, “The Doctor and the Soul XXI 1982

Timothy Keller~ “In the end, achievement can't really answer the big questions—Who am I?What am I really worth? How do I face death?” (Counterfeit Gods, pp.74-75)

For those who enjoy philosophy, you'd say, it lacks explanatory scope.

Timothy Keller~ “More than other idols, personal success and achievement lead to a sense that we ourselves are god, that our security and value rest in our own wisdom, strength, and performance...[which] means now one is like you. You are supreme.” (C.G. p.75)

Note here the individualism

James 1:14-15 “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”

James 4:1-4 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Timothy Keller~ “Another sign that you have made achievement an idol is that it distorts your view of yourself...accomplishment in one limited area of life will make you believe you have expertise in all areas.” (C.G. p.76)

I couldn't help but think of all of the New Atheists, such as Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. They think because they have a little bit of knowledge in one area, they know everything in other areas as well. But the New Atheists aren't the only ones, what about many popular pastors? They think because they've got some Theology down that they're now experts in the area of counseling, politics, philosophy, apologetics, etc. How about the “spiritual people”, those who think that now that they have gone through a tiny difficulty are now experts on everybody's trials and tribulations? Etc.

To live as an Idolater of Success is to live as if God did not exist, it is to live as an unbeliever. To live apart from God's law is to live against God and to kick Him off the throne and to proclaim your law and to proclaim yourself as king, and ideas have consequences. This is why Scripture says sin leads to death. Because only God has the power of life.

God's Holiness, Repentance, and the Gospel:

D.H. Lawrence~ “We want to delude ourselves, that of the problem of our emptiness, love is at the root. I want to say to you it isn't. Love is only the branches. The root goes beyond love. A naked kind of isolation. An isolated means that does not meet and mingle and never can. It is true what I say, there is a beyond in you and a beyond in me which goes further than love, beyond the scope of stars. Just as some stars are beyond the scope of our vision, so our own search goes beyond the scope of love. At least I think that it is at the root, going beyond love itself.”

To give such a superficial level answer as, the answer to our greatest problem is love, is to betray our Creator. The Beatles got it wrong, once again. Apart from God, love is meaningless. So our foundation must start with God. As R.C. Sproul points out magnificently, the only attribute that is described in the emphatic trifold Hebraism is Holy. God is Holy, Holy, Holy, no other attribute is described as such...not even love. God's Holiness is inexorably linked to His Glory. This is one of the reasons why the Westminster Divines could describe the purpose of man as being to bring God glory and enjoy Him forever.

Deu 6:5 "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Mat 22:36-40 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment.

Idolatry is a worldview issue, it is a dehumanization of one's self and those around you, as you are deriving meaning, significance, and purpose from temporal objects and situations. Only by God do we have anything that we can truly call value. For within a naturalistic framework there is no intrinsic value, so really, no you don't deserve anything for you are not worth anything, you're merely the collocation of various atoms banging around together. Value is merely the consequence of what we say it is and it is based upon extrinsic circumstances and situations, hence the need to find our identity in that new car, that new boat, that new job, that new younger spouse, etc. But as Scripture says, we were created in the image of God and no other religion teaches this. We inherently have value because of our God. He is Holy and is the only one who has the right over His creation.

"The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

The second law cannot stand alone, it is contingent upon the first. The first law is the only reason for the second. It is the means and reason and motive to strive for what we strive for and why we carry out a life with even the slightest ethical standard in our vocations. Our focus is now no longer on ourselves but God, our neighbor, and our family.

Proverbs 16:9 “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.”

Rom 12:3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

Mat 6:31-34 "Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

What great mercy and grace God must have upon us sinners. As we look back upon the cross and bend our knee to His will and His timing begging for forgiveness once again every time we take our eyes off of Him and put them on ourselves.