I am not sure out of which Philip Yancey book I gleaned these. As I am reading, I sometimes make notes in Evernote on my phone or tablet to jog my memory for future use. I recorded the following questions listed in a such a note entitled “Yancey’s Three Questions.”
Here they are:
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
- Why is that something so beautiful and orderly?
- How ought we to conduct ourselves in such a world?
What I like about these three questions is that the answers get to the core of the answerer’s world view.
I cannot speak for everyone who has had a public education, but either I did not pay attention (not at all unlikely) or these questions were never raised or answered.
The evolutionary science that I was taught purported to explain how the world we see came to be, but does nothing to answer the question “why?” “It just is,” is not a satisfactory answer, no matter how many mathematical formulas are used to prove it.
Why do we have an innate sense of beauty and order? Why do we have an innate sense of right and wrong?
“Why?” is a much harder and a more important question.
Yet behind the three questions stands a person who claims to have the explanation and the answer to these questions.
Jesus claimed to predate Abraham (John 8:58), He claimed unity with a Creator God (John 10:30). He claimed to be the way to eternal life (John 14:6). He made some radical claims that bring cohesive answers to these questions. Jesus claimed to be the answer.
These questions are worth pondering. If you are open to it, please examine the claims of Jesus Christ in answer to these questions. You might find something of eternal value as a result.