So at the end of the day, what is it that compels you to do things? The Holy Spirit (and are you sure it's the right one)? The Bible? (which interpretation?) Mentors? Parents? Habits? NY times bestselling authors? Friends? Freudian subconscious psyche... (oh god)...
In historical consciousness, there appears to be two extreme approaches to man's "search for guidance."
1) The first is dogmatic. The socialist, the Marxist, the communist, the Islamic terrorist, and the crusader religionist... all of them sacrifice freedom for the sake of order--whether it's through textual dogma, a vision of a purified race, or whatever.
2) The second is relativistic. These are the existentialists and the Nietzsche supermans who say, "We're really just making it all up." You gotta create your own reality as best you can.
But today I discovered a rich little grain of truth in Genesis that sheds some light on the whole discussion. It made me believe that maybe man was never intended to be held by the hand of God--never intended to be slaves to dogmatic principles and orders, or have one supreme nay sayer about what to do and what not to do.
In Genesis, we see that we were originally created to be "imago dei" decision makers and rulers over the earth. We were glorious. We still are glorious.
BUT, sin has added ambiguity to that authority we were created to exert. We're fallen. We screw it up sometimes.
So the truest description of human nature bridges tensions between our inherent glory and our ruined-ness. The glory part of us wants to rule, but the ruined part of us makes reality, information, and human action distorted, disordered, and confusing.
The problem is...our glory is still rooted in sin and earth.
Nothing will ever seem 100% clear 100% of the time. But we still have to make decisions and exert authority. So I guess we just have to cope with the reality of being glorious and ruined--always hoping for perfection but never expecting it.
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