RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Brian Godawa from www.godawa.com wrote a fantastic essay, "Movies, Storytelling, and Apologetics).
I am adapting some of it and only giving some of my conclusions (my resources are at home for the moment).
Mankind sees himself living in a Story (some refuse to see this point, but that is another matter) and he lives in terms of that story. Stories wholistically engage our body, minds and emotions through dramatic narrative. As Christians we see ourselves living in a Story that began with Creation in the Garden, was tragically derailed by the fall, potrayed future redemption through types and shadows in the Older Testament, and initially consummated at the Cross/Resurrection, etc.
The unbeliever knows this too, kind of. He wants a life, a story, a metanarrative (the latest buzz word in literature. A metanarrative is an over-arching story that encompasses all stories) through which reality makes sense. On one hand he lives as though morality/reality/logic makes sense. But he cannot account for it. He cannot explain why he has meaning in his life (I am only giving you the conclusions at the moment. Time would fail to give the whole arguments).
Since he does see meaning in his life, and to one degree or another knows the only meaningful story--the Christian story--, he seeks to find another story in place of the Christian one. He is, as Paul says, suppressing the truth in unrigthouesness.
This is similar to how CS Lewis describes Christianity as "The Myth becoming fact" or "the fairy tale that came true." I am at a coffee shop right now and all my notes are at home. thus the erratic nature of it.
I am adapting some of it and only giving some of my conclusions (my resources are at home for the moment).
Mankind sees himself living in a Story (some refuse to see this point, but that is another matter) and he lives in terms of that story. Stories wholistically engage our body, minds and emotions through dramatic narrative. As Christians we see ourselves living in a Story that began with Creation in the Garden, was tragically derailed by the fall, potrayed future redemption through types and shadows in the Older Testament, and initially consummated at the Cross/Resurrection, etc.
The unbeliever knows this too, kind of. He wants a life, a story, a metanarrative (the latest buzz word in literature. A metanarrative is an over-arching story that encompasses all stories) through which reality makes sense. On one hand he lives as though morality/reality/logic makes sense. But he cannot account for it. He cannot explain why he has meaning in his life (I am only giving you the conclusions at the moment. Time would fail to give the whole arguments).
Since he does see meaning in his life, and to one degree or another knows the only meaningful story--the Christian story--, he seeks to find another story in place of the Christian one. He is, as Paul says, suppressing the truth in unrigthouesness.
This is similar to how CS Lewis describes Christianity as "The Myth becoming fact" or "the fairy tale that came true." I am at a coffee shop right now and all my notes are at home. thus the erratic nature of it.
