The Creator

First, we know that God is Lord because he is the Creator.

Of course, the Creator is in charge of everything.

To not connect the two is absurd. Ok, on the one hand, God made everything by speaking it into existence, and on the other hand, we are autonomous creatures who can do as we please.

That's nonsense. God himself says he thinks it is hilarious. Consider Psalm 2, "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 'Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.' He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision."

The whole idea that God's authority, as the Creator, can be overthrown by his creation… it shows how easily we deceive ourselves. The most brilliant elites - political, religious, academic, financial - and ordinary people like you and me - somehow come to believe they are the masters of their destiny. In their wisdom, they - and perhaps we - have become fools.

Anyone who knows there is a Creator - and we all have evidence of this - though sometimes it is ignored - knows that we are not in charge of our lives.

But there's another implication: A Creator implies a purpose.

By contrast, if there is no Creator, then we are the creators. We become the authors of our own stories. We get autonomy. As the famous philosopher Sartre explained his existentialist philosophy, "Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing — as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism."

In advocating for this point of view, Sartre is particularly seeking to rebut a deterministic materialism. As he puts it, "All kinds of materialism lead one to treat every man including oneself as an object — that is, as a set of pre-determined reactions, in no way different from the patterns of qualities and phenomena which constitute a table, or a chair or a stone."

Do physics, chemistry, and biology dictate our lives? Should my inner will be sovereign? Is God in charge?

All great questions. But let's pause and ask an important question: do you see the framing? From every perspective - deterministic, existentialist, or Christian - people are asking a question of purpose. What are we here for? What is the point of our lives? Whose authority will prevail in determining our destiny?

Is it chemical reactions? Internal emotions? Or our Creator?

Interesting questions, but how is it that we are ALL seeking purpose?

God is our Lord because he is the Creator. And knowing this has at least two benefits. First, it rescues us from absurdity. Second, it shows us who and how we can discover the purpose of our lives. And these are enormous gifts. When we know that God is Lord, it changes our perspective in dramatic ways: from nonsense to wisdom, and from self-invention to divine purpose.