“Where the rubber meets the road” is an often used phrase. So is the idiom, “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” The first has a subjective element to it, where-as the latter is simply good advice. However, you can, in some instances, tell the book by its cover. The title for this article, “Road Meet Rubber,” is an analogy where the road is being the immovable, constant and the rubber is everything else. It is subtlety suggesting that there is truth and there are falsehoods. 

There are enough possible directions to go with this title to write a whole book. I will need to have this article broken down into parts, even though it is limited in scope.  A good introduction for this discussion is to point out the dichotomy of “What is-verses-what ought to be.”  Every believer should be aware of the huge differences between them and the ramifications those differences make in this subject we call life.

Without digging to deeply yet, it seems like a good idea to delve in just a little deeper. While one would think that the term ‘what is’ is the constant, that’s not the case; neither does the ‘what ought to be’ fully represent the rubber. When one speaks in terms of what ought to be; one is saying that some things or actions are better than other things or actions. By so doing, one is moving on into the category of morality. Better or worse, right or wrong, good or evil, whichever term applies you’re making a judgement. This judging in turn is saying there are choices. These choices are sometimes made from holding and applying moral standards to the choices one makes. That becomes part of the constant and immovable aspects of life. Not to complicated. “Not yet.”

Generally speaking, in all of today’s western civilization the ‘what we ought to do’ is fabricated out of whole cloth. The reason it is a fabrication is because they no longer hold onto an affirming standard. They have rejected the only standard that can provide a moral foundation. Science, including the naturalists, materialists and throwing in the atheists, has become the guiding principle of this new western civilization. Sadly it has also become the case of the blind leading the blind and regretfully it is intentional. The sinful nature of man really, really wants to get God the Creator and Jesus Christ the Savior out of the picture and out of their way.

Science was an effective tool for proceeding down that path. Legitimate scientific endeavors are welcomed by everyone; as a matter of fact science began as the means to better understand the glory of God and His Creation through rigorous investigation. Science began by closely observing the world around us. They tested to determine what parts were false and which remained, which has been called the falsifiability criterion. These early Christian scientists did this testing while understanding that God was also on His Throne and was the lawgiver and arbiter of what was right and what was wrong. So yes, they did look into the ‘what is’ aspects on our universe. However, science today has rejected and removed God from their vocabulary, so they don’t have anyone who can tell them what is right or wrong. They are left with only the ‘what is’. That is a very poor foundation to stand upon. The ‘what is’ for one person might not be what someone else thinks the ‘what is,’ is. That is pretty arbitrary stuff. There becomes only one rule that science uses and it is used with every other kind of living being except man. It’s the adage, “the survival of the fittest.” The next adage that lurks in the wings for everyone alive is “might makes right.” But, you guessed it, what is right is just as arbitrary as the ‘law of jungle’ survivalists and has nothing what-so-ever to do with morality.

Western civilization has confined itself into a very unattractive corner, following the ‘what is’ crowd. It’s going to be a rude, painful awakening, but talking about the idea of painful comes later. So what we have here is that the ’what is’ camp, in this case, is a reference to what is arbitrary and unstructured, it is not a constant. Arbitrariness itself can go in a multitude of directions, that is what rubber does on the road, and which sometimes ends up in a crash and burn scenerio. The constant in this case study is the case of ‘what ought to be.’ The reason for the ‘what ought to be’ being the constant is that it is not dependent on man’s objectifying the subjective nature of what his wants and desires are. The case in point is that only God can give mankind standards.

That’s not to say that mankind has perfectly followed those standards. The Garden of Eden story allows us an insider’s view into the fall and subsequent sin within which we live. But as Christians we do have a Godly set of standards to strive for. Not only that, but we have an example whom we are to emulate, Jesus Christ Himself, becoming more Christ like as we travel through this event called life.

Well the groundwork is established. There is beginning to be a new understanding of how the rubber meets the road.  Generally (this word has been used before), mankind vacillates between good and bad, right and wrong. There is still a need to address the concept between good and evil.  Doing so, along with being able to read a book by its cover will ultimately support the claims of God and Jesus giving mankind a chance to get into a right relationship with his Creator.  But everyone needs to know that science and its surrogates will never lead anyone to the forgiveness that God offers through the atoning work of Jesus Christ.