The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How It Ends, and Everything Important that Happens in Between

by Gregory Koukl

it is only after laying the groundwork of who God is, who we are, and our relationship to him that Paul explains sin and guilt, then Jesus and the resurrection.

EVERY WORLDVIEW HAS FOUR ELEMENTS. They help us understand how the parts of a person’s worldview story fit together. These four parts are called creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

worldviews help us answer the basic questions each of us struggles with sooner or later in our lives

Where did we come from? What is our problem? What is the solution? How will things end for us?

Christianity is the Story of how the world began, why the world is the way it is, what role we play in the drama, and how all the plotlines of the Story are resolved in the end.

So then, though it’s the rage these days to say all religions are basically the same, it turns out not to be the case at all. What ought to strike us, rather, is how unlike each other they really are. When it comes to the most important things, each religion’s picture of reality is quite different from the others’ (that’s what makes them

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different religions, after all). And those differences simply cannot be smoothed over by invoking, for example, naïve stories about blind men and elephants that do not really get to the heart of the matter.

given a Godless, physical universe, the idea that things are not as they should be makes

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little sense. How can something go wrong when there was no right way for it to be in the first place?

Christians promote the narrow view that Jesus is the only way precisely because Jesus himself was the author of it.

There is a narrow way to eternal life that few find, but a wide way to destruction that many follow. Indeed, Christian was not the label the followers of Jesus initially used of themselves. Rather, they called their group the Way, in light of Jesus’ own claim.

the backbone—the plot line—of the Christian Story.

the most important things that happen in the order they take place and consists of five words: God, man, Jesus, cross, resurrection (here I mean the final resurrection at the very end of the Story). That’s the big picture. It is both the storyline and the timeline, the beginning (God) to the end (resurrection).

God is the very first piece of the Christian Story because the Story is all about him. God is the central character. The Story does not start with us because the Story is not about us.

God’s purposes are central, not yours.

Here is the third important detail to notice: In this Story, everything belongs to God.

The basic principle is a commonsense one: If you make it, it’s yours.

Since God made everything out of nothing, it all belongs to him. He has proper authority to rule over all because none of it would exist without him.

The idea that God owns everything and has proper authority to rule over everything he has made is the main point.

When the whole world is run by children doing as they wish, ugly things happen.

A big bang needs a big banger.

we did not begin as supernatural beings, and we will not end as supernatural beings.

We are creatures from the beginning and will always be creatures.

we are not little gods, but we are not junk either.

claiming that some questionable behaviors are “natural” for certain people (as many have done lately) is not enough to let them off the hook morally, since all sorts of sordid behavior turns out to be just fine if we followed that rule. Does a natural desire for food justify grocery theft? Does a natural hunger for sex nullify restraints to passion? Does a natural tendency toward violence (yes, some have claimed this) justify attacks on annoying people? Are humans not obliged to a higher law than the law of nature? Animals do what comes naturally. Humans should not.

Lions are doing exactly what lions do. They are neither noble nor cruel. They are animals. The strong prey on the weak. It is in their nature, and we do not fault them for it. That is nature’s way.

When it comes to man, though, we do expect something different and we fault him when it is not. But why? If the Darwinian idea is the correct one, then everything surviving is just “right” the way it is, perfectly adapted for this moment in biological history, nothing more, nothing less.

the kind of human beauty and human brokenness we are all innately aware of are not quantity differences at all (level of education, amount of

income, content of social contract, degree of evolutionary adaptation), but quality differences—differences in value and worth, not differences in amounts. Yet this is exactly the kind of distinction that matter-ism cannot make, since value distinctions are not physical in themselves, though they may be about something physical.

We are transgressors who need to be forgiven. We have not merely “made mistakes,” like getting our sums wrong when balancing accounts. We have sinned.

Some think Jesus lightened our load by reducing our obligations down to two main ones, the so-called “Great” commandments. In reality, he increased the burden. First, he said, we must love God with every ounce of our being. Second, we must love even our worst enemy with the same force and passion that we love ourselves.

And here we come to a critical point in the Story: The thing that went wrong with man caused what went wrong with the world. The world is broken because we are broken. Our badness made the world go bad.

it is more

accurate to say that a good God always prevents suffering and evil unless he has a good reason to allow it.

Precisely because God is good he made a creature that could go bad.

Since moral freedom just is the possibility of doing good and evil, removing the possibility would remove the freedom.

mythical accounts of the mystery-religion gods that actually do bear some resemblance to Jesus’ life unfortunately (for the theory) show up after his time.

This fact creates a problem for the recycled redeemer view since it looks very much like those stories were copied from the Gospels, not the other way around.

one must show that a story is false before it makes any sense to speculate on how the falsehood originated in the first place.

you were a first-century fabricator seeking to convince fiercely monotheistic, Torah-observant Jews that their Messiah had arrived, would you draw from pagan accounts of dying and rising gods to make your point, especially when those same Jews expected a king who would conquer, not a Messiah who would be murdered, much less rise

from the dead? I think this is unlikely in the extreme.

People who think Jesus never existed are simply not acquainted with the ample research done even by secular historians that provide abundant evidence for his life. The idea that Jesus did not exist at all is drivel, and real historians know it.

Jesus did not come to help us get along or teach us to take care of the poor or to restore “social justice.”

The divide for Jesus was not between the poor and the rich, but between the proud and the repentant, regardless of income or social standing. Miss that, and you miss everything.

when the justice of God is fully satisfied, Jesus simply dismisses his spirit into the Father’s hands and dies.10 But before he does, a single word falls from his lips. It is the word tetelestai.

Jesus’ solitary word requires three English words to translate: “It is finished.”11 Do not misunderstand, however. Jesus is not collapsing in exhausted relief at the end of suffering. The ordeal is done, true enough, but the Son of God rejoices not in what is over. He celebrates, rather, what has been accomplished. His words, precisely rendered, mean, “It has been and will forever remain finished.”

world. I want you to think for a moment about what that means. You

can exchange your ponderous list of crimes, the heavy chains of guilt you forged in life, for the goodness of Christ. It is a gift, and the gift is free. It cannot be earned.20 Jesus has already paid. It can only be received, humbly, on bended knee. You must simply trust him for it. And this is what the Story means by “faith.”

reason and evidence matter in the Story. It is critical to get certain facts right. Put simply—reason assesses, faith trusts.

Reason helps us know what is actually true, leading to accurate belief.