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3R THURSDAY: The Altar of the Unknown Future
God has written eternity on our hearts
Cole F. Watson
June 22, 2023
What is 3R Thursday?
3R Thursday is a newsletter published every Thursday that contains ruminations, reflections, and readings to encourage Christians in their pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
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3R Thursday: The Altar of the Unknown Future
The Altar of the Unknown Future
Rumination
This week’s rumination comes from Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.
…
I remember a personal experience. Almost in tears from pain (I had terrible sores on my feet from wearing torn shoes), I limped a few kilometers with our long column of men from the camp to our work site. Very cold, bitter winds struck us. I kept thinking of the endless little problems of our miserable life.
What would there be to eat tonight?
If a piece of sausage came as extra ration, should I exchange it for a piece of bread?
Should I trade my last cigarette, which was left from a bonus I received a fortnight ago, for a bowl of soup?
How could I get a piece of wire to replace the fragment which served as one of my shoelaces?
Would I get to our work site in time to join my usual working party or would I have to join another, which might have a brutal foreman?
What could I do to get on good terms with the Capo, who could help me to obtain work in camp instead of undertaking this horribly long daily march?
I became disgusted with the state of affairs which compelled me, daily and hourly, to think of only such trivial things. I forced my thoughts to turn to another subject.
Suddenly I saw myself standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm and pleasant lecture room. In front of me sat an attentive audience on comfortable upholstered seats. I was giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp! All that oppressed me at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science.
By this method I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already of the past.
Reflection
Turns out the prisoners in the concentration camps were worried about
Food
Clothing
Friends, and
Supervisors.
Sound familiar?
Yet Dr. Frankl calls these worries “trivial” and was “disgusted” to ponder such things.
While fighting for his life.
In a Nazi concentration camp.
How did he keep from pondering the “endless little problems of [his] miserable life”?
He looked to the future—a “peculiarity” that all men share.
He envisioned giving a lecture to an “attentive audience” regarding his current “state of affairs.”
He imagined he was lecturing on the “psychology of the concentration camp”— while he was still in the concentration camp!
And by doing so, he “succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and [he] observed [the sufferings] as if they were already of the past.”
Dr. Frankl concluded that we “can only live by looking to the future".
Is that true?
Imagine a timeline.
Do you see time moving from left to right?
I bet you see a clear delineation between the blank page and the starting point.
But where does that timeline end?
Peculiar, isn’t it?
Strange. Curious. Quaint. Weird. And wonderful.
Up, forward, and through.
Along the timeline we go.
These types of illustrations fill my journals.
We are always looking ahead.
To the next thing.
The next meal.
The next birthday.
The next doctor’s appointment.
The next vacation.
Obligation.
Book.
TV show.
Milestone for our kids.
When will he crawl?
When will he walk?
When will he obey?
When will he talk?
Because often times we dread the Immediacy of Now.
Our house is messy now, so we look forward to when it will be clean.
Our jobs don’t pay enough now, so we look forward to when we will earn more.
Our schedules are too busy now, so we look forward to when we will have more time.
We always anticipate the future, but the future never arrives.
We look forward to the future as though the future is definitive—a fixed point along that timeline.
Perhaps we, too, see ourselves “standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm and pleasant lecture room[,] [i]n front of…an attentive audience on comfortable upholstered seats.”
As long as we look far enough ahead, we can move up, forward, and through.
Along the timeline we move,
always looking ahead to the future.
A future that we envision,
but is foggy and distant.
A future that we imagine,
but is woefully unknown.
Why do we crave the unknown? Why do we cast ourselves up, forward, and through the timeline to some unspecified point in the future—the Unknown Future?
Dr. Frankl concludes that it is the only way we can live.
A “peculiarity” to be sure, but apparently “looking to the future” is the only way we can survive.
Is that true?
How does this peculiar human survival instinct manifest itself in our lives?
We structure our entire lives around the Unknown Future, doing our best to
Navigate.
Educate.
Find our soulmate.
Increase the birthrate.
And acclimate to a life that requires selecting figs from a Figless Fig Tree.
We worship the Unknown Future like Athenians worshipped the unknown god.
Our toiling after the Unknown Future is no different than the religious devotion that the Stoics and Epicureans demonstrated in their pursuit of Truth.
Paul tells the Athenians,
“I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’
What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us….
What if the Unknown Future was really an idol of our own making, of our own “imagination”?
A vain attempt to “feel [our] way toward” the “God who made the world and everything in it”?
We strive toward the Unknown Future without realizing our idolatry.
Paul pointed to the Athenians’ inscripted altar to show their misplaced worship of “the unknown god.”
The Altar of the Unknown Future may be more inconspicuous but it is just as idolatrous.
As the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…
11[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
No wonder we long for the Unknown Future: God has written “eternity into man’s heart.”
When we finally have the opportunity to “find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” it will truly be “beautiful in its time.”
So what are we do to before then? The writer of Ecclesiastes tell us to
Be joyful.
Do good.
Eat.
Drink.
Take pleasure in our toil. (Ecclesiastes 3)
The writer continues:
14I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been[.]
God’s gifts endure forever.
Forsake the Altar of the Unknown Future.
Repent and pursue Christ, “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), the great “assurance” that God is in control (Acts 17:29-31).
And see that the “peculiarity” to move up, forward, and through is really our desperate longing to be with our Creator—the one who wrote “eternity” into our hearts.
Reading
Ancient Voices: An Insider's Look at the Early Church by Louis Markos
This week’s 3R Thursday is presented by Rise & Build Academy.
If you know of a 10-12th grade student that is interested in law, I am teaching a class this fall entitled FOUNDATIONS OF LAW FROM A CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW.
More information can be found at Rise & Build Academy.
The introductory lecture can be found here.
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See you next Thursday!