I’m not sure there is anything more annoying then a pesky fly, other than maybe a pesky mosquito. Recently one of those pesky flies somehow made its way into my office, and didn’t want to leave. Eventually, swatting it withy my hand wasn’t going to dissuade it from bothering me, so I pulled out the big stick, a rolled up newspaper. Numerous times as it landed I did my best to anticipate it’s next move, and slammed the newspaper where it was no longer. Finally I got it, but not completely. The injured fly did everything it could to flee from impending doom, but eventually the newspaper was too much, and it left the land of the living. I felt bad. I’d just taken a life, albeit an annoying one. It got me thinking of a conversation I had with a friend some time ago who asked me an unexpected question: Are you afraid of dying? Well, yes, I am, as a matter of fact. His response was stark: I’m not. I’ve wondered about that encounter ever since, and it came back to me as I watched the fly struggle for existence.
Why is it all living things recoil from death? Unlike human beings who think of death, who contemplate it, fear it (and everyone fears it no matter what they say), seek ways to avoid it, animals without the ability to think , or fish, or pests of various kinds, have a deep seeded instinct to avoid it at any cost. Have you ever seen a majestic Marlin on a hook? The incredible battle you witness is one for life. The fish can’t think, but everything inside its being says no, this will not happen, flee, fight. I imagine a message hovering over the scene writ large: Death is wrong! Death should not be! Death is unnatural! Why would this be, though? Why do all living things not only shrink from death, but do everything in their power to avoid it? That’s a question secular people don’t ask because it’s uncomfortable. The secular culture pushes the illusion that maybe, just maybe, death can be avoided; maybe if we just ignore it, it might not come for us. Everyone knows that’s silly, but don’t bring it up; that’s not polite. Death is “natural” after all, the “circle of life,” and all that. No it’s not. Ask the fly.
There is only one thing that explains death: God, the only answer for why life and death exists. If you want to know how and why, read Genesis 1-3. I often think of John 11 when contemplating this unpleasant topic. There we read the story of Jesus as he encounters the death of his good friend Lazarus, whom he will soon bring back to life, and whom he let die by delaying his visit. It’s a strange story if it were not true. Nobody makes up a story about Jesus crying at his friend’s tomb, dead four days, when he will shortly bring him back to life. The point of the story is the point of the fly: death is wrong. Flee!!! It is not part of the great circle, a la the delusions of Disney, but an ugly, disfiguring of God’s creation that needs to be set right (and it will be!). That is why we fear it, and creatures flee from it.
I’m reading a fascinating little book called The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers. The author, Carl L. Becker, comments on the the massive output of Aquinas saying that it took him “twenty volumes to say that it was really right that things should be wrong, God only knows why.” Exactly. Since the radical skeptics of that century, Hume, Diderot, Voltaire, et al, Christians have been on the defensive, as if “the problem of evil” were their problem. The problem is far greater for the materialists atheists who declare God doesn’t exist. It is they who have to defend the notion that mere matter in motion can explain the wrongness we all feel about evil and death and injustice. They have not a clue why my poor little annoying fly fled so piteously from my almighty newspaper seeking to crush it to death. Their explanation as it is, is as poor as it is pathetic—just because. That is the atheist materialist’s explanation for everything because it’s the only possible explanation!
We could do this forever, but let’s look at some examples of their futility. Life? Just because. Goodness, beauty, and truth? Just because. A newborn baby entering life from its mother’s womb? Just because. A sunset or sunrise? Just because. A lunar or solar eclipse? Just because. Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion? Just because. Music? Just because. Melody, harmony, and rhythm? Just because. Logic? Just because? Physics? Chemistry? Mathematics? Just because. Gravity? Just because. Millions of cells in our bodies that are like little computers? Just because. Taste buds? Just because. Food that grows out of the ground that we can taste? Just because. That same food so we can live? Total coincidence! Annoying flies? Well, there I draw the line; God is the only answer!
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