Main Idea: Clarity of Thought Comes via Grasping Alternatives

Introduction: One of my favorite professors in college and grad school was Dr. Higgins. He had the reputation of having read more than any other professor in the English Department. He had glasses with Coke bottle-thick lenses, and he was ready to discuss almost any worthy book with those who shared his love of literature. One of the things that won me over to his way of teaching is that he would write a vertical line down the middle of the board. On the left side of the line, he would write “Vision of Chaos.” On the right side of the line, he would write “Vision of Order.” Then under each heading, he would list examples of what we were discussing. For example, if we were talking about 19th-20^th century literary pieces casting a vision of existential despair vs. pieces casting a vision of order, hope, and redemption, he would list some. It would look something like this:

Vision of Chaos:	vs.	Vision of Order:
The Stranger (Camus)	vs.	The Moviegoer (Percy)
Nausea (Sartre)	vs.	Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (Hemingway)	vs.	Orthodoxy (Chesterton)

Dr. Higgins was a masterful teacher because he clarified alternatives. He showed us the necessity of thinking clearly, of seeing things as either/or. You could call it, “the beauty of the binary.” Man or woman; boy or girl; hot or wet; strong or weak; fast or slow, etc. Nothing teaches quite like grasping alternatives clearly.

Wisdom from the Word: One of the magisterial passages of Scripture is Isaiah 45. Verses 18-19 are to me profound in their clarification of alternatives. Listen to what God says through his prophet Isaiah:

For thus says the Lord,
who created the heavens
    (he is God!),
who formed the earth and made it
    (he established it;
he did not create it empty,
    he formed it to be inhabited!):
“I am the Lord, and there is no other.
   I did not speak in secret,
    in a land of darkness;
I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,
    ‘Seek me in vain.’
I the Lord speak the truth;
    I declare what is right. (Isaiah 45:18-19, ESV)

See the alternatives God clarifies? God exists. He is a God of order. His creation, therefore, is orderly. It bears the marks of intricate design because God is the supreme Designer. And man is intellectually designed by the sovereign wise God to behold creation. Why? Because it attests to the majesty of its author, God. Not only does God do this, but He is also the God of truth and of what is right. All of that theology is right there in just these two verses.

See the alternative? Either man is a cosmic accident, so much brain fizz, no more valuable that pond scum or desert sand, or he is created in the image of the good and wise God, and man can behold his Creator by virtue of natural revelation (nature), by conscience, and by special revelation (Scripture).

That’s what Dr. Higgins used to do so well. He showed us the alternatives in worldviews. Either this or that. Either chaos or order.

Encouragement: One of the unique beauties of Christianity is that it reveals why we are drawn to beauty. We vacation on cruises, and take photos with our loved ones with stunning sunsets and sunrises, or we photo beaches or mountaintops or trees and flowers and our children … why? Because beautiful things bear witness to God who is beauty Himself. And this God is the God who speaks, who loves, who redeems, and who calls all who will come to behold Him who is all-wise, all-sufficient, and altogether lovely.