Lately, I have been quite intrigued by the work of Walt Disney. As a visionary entrepreneur, I’m interested in how folks like him pushed the boundaries of what was thought possible.
What may surprise you, though, is how he was unknowingly an important theological voice in the 20th century.
Now—as a tech nerd, I am also interested in the concept of utopia.
What is Utopia?
Simply put, it’s the idea that an actual perfect state of affairs is attainable on earth.
There are few visionaries known more for their ideas of utopia than Walt. Walt envisioned what he called EPCOT—the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow—as a model city.
He would build EPCOT to be a place where American industry could thrive, and people could enjoy safe, efficient, and isolated dwelling.
I'm inspired by Walt’s tenacity and his vision for the future; however, his longing for utopia is a theological black hole.
What man most desires, man once had—and lost.
Paradise lost is more than just a classic novel—it’s an imperfect, but pretty close, view of the way the world really is.
See…I want utopia. I do!
But if there is one thing earth history has taught me, it’s this: utopia is impossible.
That is—utopia apart from what God has designed.
I fully believe God will restore the earth to its proper state. In fact, he promises us as much.
This is a concept I explore in my most recent book, God, the Great Commission, and You.
If you’d like an extended discussion on the concept of utopia, and why it will never be attainable on human terms despite being a source of desire for humans around the globe, I would encourage you to pick up a copy here: www.SteveSchramm.com/GGY
Enduring Together, Steve
Walt Disney: Theologian, Unaware
DEC 31st 2020_PART 5 of 5 on Genesis 1
------------The rationalistic version of Biblical exegesis------------
Baptist Professor Ostrander (2002) remarks that Adam and Eve, when they respectively 'opened their eyes' 'for the first time', surely had 'thoughts and feelings' 'rushing through them' of the Natural world around them. This implies far more about the self evidence Divine Design than what our dull, and culturally warped, biologically Fallen brains readily can suspect as being self evident.
Indeed, as part of his own remark, Ostrander asserts that it is 'impossible' for us to know 'what kinds of thoughts and feelings would have been rushing through' Adam and Eve in their first moments of life.
But it is universally self evident that much of their thoughts and feelings must have been similar to many that we already have, or can have, of the natural world around us and above us (which is what that Psalm 19 is about).
So the first thing we must do is be sure we are not harboring a too-sharp dichotomy between ourselves and Adam and Eve. They were, like we are, in essentially the same self evidently designed Natural Creation.
The epistemologically passive 'affirmation' of the Bible that Ostrander seems to make is rationalistically justified. Nevertheless, it is metaphysically and epistemologically vacuous: it is dissociative---like a disembodied Blank Slate mind that lives in an empty space. So such 'affirmation' is just like thinking to properly understand God and Genesis 1 by approaching the account firstly and mainly according to mere logical possibility cum God's omnipotence.
So we cannot afford to ignore or degrade Psalm 19 in this. For, to ignore or disregard this psalm regarding Genesis 1 is to doom all our 'thumping' on Genesis 1 to nothing truly foundational for anything, much less for the debate on origins.
Then the other sides in that debate shall simply continue as they have done all along: to feel, and rightly so, that our own position on Genesis 1 includes SOME deep flaws. Those sides shall then continue simply to conflate their feeling on this with their own sense that their logic on the debate is sound.
This is like two very different dogs, both rabid, each attacking the other in a small cage, and one of the dogs is mostly right. Any wrongness on the part of that mostly-right dog shall not be seen by the other as a minor issue. This is especially if some of that wrongness is, in fact, VERY DEEP.
As Apostle Paul makes clear (Romans 1:20-23, 10:18), the prime difference between atheistic and Christian notions of origins is not that of the presence or absence of a Creator, nor of the presence or absence of Deep-Time-and-Death notions of origins. Rather, the prime difference is the presence or absence of a less or more rounded doctrine on the universal self-evidence of Divine Design of Nature Present. And it seems, at least to me, that Paul is saying that it is the rejection of that evidence that LEADS to such Deep Time notions of origins.
DEC 31st 2020_PART 4 of 5 on Genesis 1
6. Worst of all, we would be inclined to the 'logic' of the science-fictional Vulcans regarding marriage: that marriage is some kind of collectivist loyalty to 'the survival of the species.' Thus, human social virtue would, for us, be mere fantasy. This is because our main set of concerns would be that of the values of (1) toil, and (2) the human power to make and contrive things to help us maintain the ship. We might have an open ended supply of raw matter that drifts through extragalactic space, as random clouds of it may continually be propelled out of host galaxies. But we would have no natural knowledge of any of the main things of which Genesis 1 is about.
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So this Stranded Space Ship hypothesis seems to show that our physical and metaphysical cosmological virtue depends on our native relation to the Ecological Earth. It seems this space ship scenario, if it were reality, would be cosmologically misleading to us, both directly and in regard to Genesis 1. In short, it seems it would cause us to have a bankrupt philosophy of cosmology, anthropology, and theology. It therefore might be described as the ultimate 'Space Ship Cosmology'.
And item 4. shows what the Sabbath rest is about: rest. The command to keep the Sabbath rest was not intended to make it mechanically impossible for humans to work on the Sabbath. It was intended to help preserve the practice of resting on the Sabbath. Just because there was no Sabbath command in Genesis 1 or 2 does not mean God did not, at that time, intend for humans to cease producing physical wealth every seventh day. If anything, an original lack of any such command was itself the best expression of the nature and relevance of the Sabbath rest. We are God's children, not God's robots. We naturally follow His example, no command required.
And the Sabbath REST is about general personal individuality, or autonomy, WITHIN the universal self evidence of Divine Design. It is NOT about 'obeying' 'commands'. We are individual and differentiated living creatures, not robot clones needing to be programmed. Not even the holy angels are clones. And the one entity which is the most differentiated from the creature, yet the most broadly affirming of the creature, is God.
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