God & the Gloved One
Were God’s laws ‘written on his heart’?
Day 294, Week 42, Article 41
Conceived in sin, we all start out in life with a “clean slate.” (Ps. 51:5) Social psychologists, child psychologists, and other child development specialists subscribe to John Locke’s “blank page” or tabla rosa whereupon parents record the first impressions of young lives. Michael Jackson’s parents were no different. After Joseph Jackson introduced (and then abandoned) the teachings of the Bible as understood by Jehovah’s Witnesses to his wife Katherine, she wasted no time in passing them on to Michael and his siblings as she wrote “them upon the tablet of [their] heart.” (Prov. 3:3; 22:6, New World Translation) While life may have erased some of the etchings, the love of God remained indelibly stamped.
As he expressed his love for the human family through his music and charity, Michael attempted to inscribe L.O.V.E. on the heart and soul of the collective human psyche. This was not an emotional act, completely devoid of any substance. The man exercised his profound “intellectual capacity.” (1 John 5:20, NWT) Indeed, employing quintessential logic, the Gloved One humbled himself “under the mighty hand of God.” (1 Pet. 5:6) Here’s what I mean:
Navigating with Newton: Michael didn’t believe in God simply because his mother dictated that such an inscription be written on his heart. It was logical to believe in the Creator. Consider this true-life story as related by the publishers of the New World Translation:Â
“Newton once had a skilled mechanic make for him a model of the solar system. Balls representing the planets were geared together so as to move realistically in orbit. One day an atheist friend visited Newton. On seeing the model, he operated it, and exclaimed in admiration, ‘Who made it?’ Newton answered, ‘Nobody!’ The atheist replied, ‘You must think I am a fool! Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius.’ Newton then said to his friend, ‘This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker!'”
Siding with Scientists: There is a growing number of scientists who have concluded from their research that there must be a God who created man and the universe. While some believe that science has disproved the existence of God, nothing could be further from the truth. According to the book Reasoning from the Scriptures, “New Scientist magazine said: ‘The lay view persists-of scientists having “disproved” religion. It is a view that commonly expects scientists to be nonbelievers; that Darwin put the last nails in God’s coffin; and that a succession of scientific and technological innovations since have ruled out the possibility of any resurrection. It is a view that is wildly wrong.'”
Reasoning goes on to say: “A member of the French Academy of Sciences stated: ‘Natural order was not invented by the human mind or set up by certain perceptive powers….The existence of order presupposes the existence of organizing intelligence. Such intelligence can be none other than God’s.'” Michael, with his extraordinary emotional intelligence, believed this.
Indeed, God’s commands, laws, and statutes were written on the hearts of all Joseph’s and Katherine’s children. Amen.
