Ray Ciervo Ministries

“A thin, flat world” is a phrase I know I came across reading something, something about worldview. God help me I can’t remember where. I’d like to give the author credit. However, it’s too good a phrase to pass up.

What is a thin, flat world? It’s a world offered by atheists, where humans are simply evolved animals, but animals none the less. A thin, flat world is a world without intrinsic beauty, beauty in music, in art, in Creation itself. Why would that be so? Because when we reject God from Creation we reject any objective standard for judging anything, not only morals, but simple things like beauty too.

In this thin, flat world, we reject the complexity of the human soul, because humans have no “souls.” All we are is chemicals in motion. We are determined by a series of causes (unexplained) that move our chemically responsive emotions. Will? No, there is no free will. We are determined by some unguided, purposeless “thing” called natural selection. A thin, flat world. Inexplicably, my chemicals are being moved to cause me to write this piece on this thin, flat world. Interesting.

This description of this thin flat world is not a reason to disbelieve it is true; that it is actual. (True, is too colorful a concept and indicates a different world than this thin, flat one.) If this thin, flat world, which is presented as actual is in fact reality, I have a couple of questions.

The first is: Why do I know this? Where did my ability to reason come from? I don’t mean my ability to discern whether I prefer meat or vegetables, but whether something is good or evil. Where did this reasoning ability come from? Why do I know that Hitler was evil and Mother Theresa was good? Why do I know that killing babies is wrong and feeding the poor and dispossessed is good? Although some might find my first example questionable, anyone who denies the second would be considered wrong. Why? Why am I considered wrong as a Christian? Where did the ability to judge that come from?

Intelligence is no better answer, because it just moves us back one step. Where did intelligence come from? I’m pressing on a concept of science that states every effect must have a cause and in that effect is some part of that cause. Something cannot give something else what it does not have. Every effect has a piece of its cause in it.

This leads me to the atheistic proposition that denies a Creator. Honest atheists will state they don’t know how the Universe began. Whether they are scientists or philosophers, the honest ones will stand behind an agnostic answer. However, when pushed, they will deny a Creator, certainly the God of the Bible.

However, cause and effect is a worthy pursuit in discovering the beginning of the Universe and life itself. Matter cannot produce intelligence, certainly not morals. Rocks don’t think. So this ability to reason gives us a premise, a first thought. Is my mind an evolved mixture of chemicals in motion, accidentally formed by an unguided force? Or is it designed as a means of expressing my true self? The question arises from this: Can matter make mind? Or, does mind make matter? The latter seems to be the more plausible answer.

The simple ability to argue this question appears to be proof of the latter. If the former is true there is no basis for the argument. What is gained? If there is no Creator, no purpose and this truly is a thin, flat world then nothing really matters. There’s no one to answer to. This thin, flat world cannot state it would be “better” for everyone if we all believed there is no Creator, no God. Says who?

My point would be that the very idea that one is better than the other requires us to recognize a standard somewhere out there that wants me to adhere to it. The very ability to discern a better way requires a judgment based on evidence located somewhere. In a thin, flat world, that doesn’t exist. We’re not special as humans, simply evolved animals seeking to survive. Wait a minute . . . Why do we want to survive? Is survival better than extinction? How do we know that? Does it mean that “to be” is better than “to not be?”

The thin, flat world denies any specialness for humanity. Personhood is a construct based on the ability to function in life as “normal.” We could ask once again, “What is normal and how is it determined?” In a thin, flat world this is arbitrary reasoning based on darwinian ethics which ultimately seeks to eradicate the weakest. The thin, flat world is boring, yet destructive. 

In the biblical worldview, person is equivalent to human. All humans a persons, not because of their function or ability to function, but by their nature. The Godhead is three persons as are angels - but that’s for another blog. We share personhood with God who caused us to be. Because of that, we are special in Creation. We are his image bearers, we bear his likeness too.

The world is not thin, nor flat. It is full and round. Full of color, beauty, wisdom, and knowledge. It is a world where humans can seek to experience all of these and grow in stature. Most importantly, it is a place where humans can find their Creator and see their need for a savior. 

[In the strange way my mind works, I believe the “thin, flat world” thing came from J.P. Moreland’s, Kingdom Triangle.]