<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0">
  <title>​What Hurricane Harvey Reveals About Our Deepest Desires - Sean McDowell</title>

    <meta property="og:title" content="​What Hurricane Harvey Reveals About Our Deepest Desires"/>
            <meta property="og:image" content="http://seanmcdowell.org/assets/meta_img/_metaImage/HurricaneHarvey.jpg"/>
        
        <meta property="og:description" content="The response to Hurricane Harvey reveals that we realize people matter most. The Christian view of reality makes good sense of why we so deeply value persons."/>
    <meta name="description" content="The response to Hurricane Harvey reveals that we realize people matter most. The Christian view of reality makes good sense of why we so deeply value persons.">
        <meta property="og:type" content="article" />
	    <meta property="og:url" content="http://seanmcdowell.org/blog/what-hurricane-harvey-reveals-about-our-deepest-desires" />
	    <meta property="og:site_name" content="Sean McDowell" />

  <!-- Twitter Card data -->
    <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary">
    <meta name="twitter:site" content="@sean_mcdowell">
		<meta name="twitter:title" content="​What Hurricane Harvey Reveals About Our Deepest Desires">
		    <meta name="twitter:description" content="The response to Hurricane Harvey reveals that we realize people matter most. The Christian view of reality makes good sense of why we so deeply value persons.">
	    <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@sean_mcdowell">
    	    	    <meta name="twitter:image" content="http://seanmcdowell.org/assets/meta_img/_metaImage/HurricaneHarvey.jpg"/>
	        
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/app.css">
  <link href="http://seanmcdowell.org/feed.rss" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Sean McDowell Feed" />
  <!--[if IE 9]>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/ie9.css">
  <![endif]-->
  <!--[if lt IE 9]>

  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/ie.css">

  <script src="/js/plugins/respond.src.js"></script>

  <script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>

  <![endif]-->
  <meta name="google-site-verification" content="Qh3ZKCoMRDYhs2VMQEQvNO0GEoaiXiKMDvFNbRxj6hs" />
</head>
<body>
  <!--wrapper starts-->
  <div id="wrapper">
    <!--header starts-->
    <div id="header">
      <div class="visual-container">
        <div class="container"><img src="/images/content/img-header-1.jpg" width="384" height="116" alt="image description" class="illustration">
          <div class="row">
            <div class="columns large-1 hide-for-medium-only hide-for-small-only">&nbsp;</div>
            <div class="columns large-3 medium-7 small-12"><strong class="logo"><a href="/">Sean McDowell</a></strong></div>
            <div class="columns large-8 medium-5 small-12">
              <div class="holder">
                <ul class="social-list clearfix">
                  <li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/seanmcdowellphd" target="_blank"><i class="fa fa-facebook-square"></i></a></li>
                  <li><a href="https://twitter.com/sean_mcdowell" class="twitter" target="_blank"><i class="fa fa-twitter-square"></i></a></li>
                </ul>
                <form action="http://seanmcdowell.org/search/results" novalidate class="search-form">
                  <fieldset>
                    <input type="submit" value="submit">
                    <input type="search" name="q" placeholder="SEARCH">
                  </fieldset>
                </form>
              </div>
			  <nav id="nav"><a href="#" class="opener hidden l-visible"></a>
                <ul>
                  <li><a href="/contact">CONTACT</a></li>
                  <li><a href="/schedule">SCHEDULE</a></li>
                  <li class="has-drop"><a href="#">AUTHOR<i class="ico"></i></a>
                    <ul class="drop">
                                                                <li><a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/author/cv">Curriculum Vitae</a></li>
                                            <li><a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/author/bio">Biography</a></li>
                                            <li><a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/author/statement-of-faith">Statement of Faith</a></li>
                                            <li><a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/author/speaking-topics">Speaking Topics</a></li>
                                            <li><a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/author/venues">Venues</a></li>
                                            <li><a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/author/endorsements">Endorsements</a></li>
                                            <li><a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/author/photos">Photos</a></li>
                                        </ul>
                  </li>
                  <li><a href="/books">BOOKS</a></li>
                  <li><a href="/podcasts">PODCASTS</a></li>
                  <li class="has-drop"><a href="/blog">BLOG<i class="ico"></i></a>
                    <ul class="drop">
                          <li><a href="/blog">ALL POSTS</a></li>
                          <li><label>Categories:</label></li>
                          <li class="divider"></li>
                                                                      <li><a href="/category/apologetics">Apologetics</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/atheism">Atheism</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/biblical-trustworthiness">Biblical Trustworthiness</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/book-reviews">Book Reviews</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/communication">Communication</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/apostles">Apostles</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/ethics-morality">Ethics/Morality</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/homosexuality">Homosexuality</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/hot-topics">Hot Topics</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/jesus">Jesus</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/lessons-from-my-father">Lessons from My Father</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/other-religions">Other Religions</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/pornography">Pornography</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/science">Science</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/sex">Sex</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/teaching">Teaching</a></li>
                                                <li><a href="/category/youth">Youth</a></li>
                                          </ul>
                  </li>
                  <li><a href="/videos">VIDEOS</a></li>
                </ul>
              </nav>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
    <!--header ends-->
    <!--main starts-->
    <div id="main">
            <div class="container">
			
        <div class="row">
          <div class="columns large-1 hide-for-medium-only hide-for-small-only">&nbsp;</div>
          <div class="columns large-6 medium-8 small-12 no-padding-left no-padding-right show-padding-left-middle show-padding-right-middle">
            <section class="blog">
              <h2>SEAN MCDOWELL BLOG</h2>
                                <img src="http://seanmcdowell.org/assets/meta_img/_blogheader/HurricaneHarvey.jpg" height="264" width="639" alt="​What Hurricane Harvey Reveals About Our Deepest Desires" class="visual">
                                    <div class="img-attribute text-right">
                    <small>Photo credit <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/texasmilitaryforces/" target="_blank">Texas Military Department</a></small>
                  </div>
                                              <h1>​What Hurricane Harvey Reveals About Our Deepest Desires</h1><em class="date">Posted September 07, 2017 by Sean McDowell</em>
              <div class="social-box">
              	<!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
                <div class="addthis_sharing_toolbox"></div>
              </div>

				
				
					<p><strong>What Hurricane Harvey Reveals About Our Deepest Desires</strong>
</p><p><strong>SeanMcDowell.org</strong>
</p><p>By any measure, Hurricane Harvey has been a disaster. The financial damage is an estimated <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hurricane-harvey-180-billion-damage-more-than-katrina-sandy-texas-governor-a7927906.html">$180 billion</a>. The destruction has spread over 300 miles and damaged about 200,000 homes. But the greatest damage is clearly the estimated 47 people who have died. The physical destruction is substantial, but the human loss is unmistakably the most significant.
</p><p>As we move on from the initial stages of this tragedy, certain things become clear. While we do mourn the loss of buildings, it’s not for the sake of the buildings themselves. We mourn the loss of buildings because of how this affects <i>people</i>. We mourn the physical damage to neighborhoods because this is where people live, relate, eat, sleep, and share memories. We don’t mourn for the buildings themselves, but for the people who have died and for the lives that have been deeply unsettled.
</p><p>And on the flip side, we are inspired by the Texas residents with boats who jumped to the <a href="http://ktla.com/2017/08/28/hurricane-harvey-texas-residents-with-boats-work-to-save-lives-after-massive-flooding/">rescue</a> of their neighbors. And we are especially moved by the sacrifice of <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/29/us/harvey-houston-police-officer-dies/index.html">Sergeant Perez</a>, the Houston Police officer, who lost his life in service to the city of Houston. One thing seems clear to me in this tragedy: <i>We all realize that people matter most</i>.
</p><p>Professor Greg Ganssle explains what this means for how we view the world:
</p><p><i>“That people matter most is something we rarely consciously think about. It is a deep commitment that almost everyone shares. Reflecting on this commitment suggests a question about reality. What kind of picture of reality makes room for the fact that people matter most? I suggest that the Christian picture of reality makes good sense of this aspect of our lives. In other words, the picture of reality presented by Christianity grounds and explains our values and aspirations concerning the importance of people. A simple observation is enough to show this claim to be true: </i>In the Christian story, the most fundamental reality is personal.”<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">[1]</a>
</p><p>In the Christian story, ultimate reality is personal. God himself is a personal being. In fact, God is <i>tri-­</i>personal. There is one God who eternally exists as three persons.
</p><p>In the Christian story, God is not a force, as in the Star Wars saga. God is not within the universe, as in the New Age story. Rather, God is the creator of the universe who constantly sustains it. God merely spoke and the world came into existence (Genesis 1:1). The universe, and the people it contains, are the intentional creation of a personal God.
</p><p>Human beings are designed to be in relationship with God and other people (Mark 12:28-34). As beings made in the image of God, we each have infinite dignity, value, and worth regardless of our race, income, age, or any other secondary factor. Our lives matter because we have been made by a personal God who gives us both meaning and worth. Even if we don’t feel like it, or live like it, our lives have <i>real</i> value.
</p><p><strong>Persons In Atheism</strong><br>
</p><p>But this is not true in all worldviews. For instance, in the atheistic worldview, humans are nothing but accidental products of blind forces in nature. Bertrand Russell famously said,
</p><p><i>“That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms.”<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><strong>[2]</strong></a></i>
</p><p>On Russell’s view, the most basic part of reality is physical matter—not personhood. In fact, persons arrive late on the scene through an accidental, valueless, material process.
</p><p><strong>Persons In New Age</strong><br>
</p><p>The same dilemma exists for New Age. On this worldview, everything is spiritual "stuff." Distinctions are artificial. There really is no difference between you and me, right and wrong, mater and spirit, as well as personal and impersonal beings. All is one. As with atheism, pantheism fails to account for human personhood.
</p><p>As Hurricane Harvey has revealed, we all know that persons matter most. The match between the Christian worldview and our belief in the value of persons, as demonstrated in Harvey, is remarkable.
</p><p>So, please keep giving and sacrificing for those who have suffered through Hurricane Harvey. But just remember <i>why</i> you’re doing it—because people matter most.
</p><p><strong>Sean McDowell, Ph.D. </strong>is a professor of <a href="https://www.biola.edu/apologetics">Christian Apologetics at Biola University</a>, best-selling author, popular speaker, part-time high school teacher, and the Resident Scholar for <a href="https://www.summit.org/programs/student-conferences/california/">Summit Ministries</a>, California. Follow him on Twitter: @sean_mcdowell and his blog: seanmcdowell.org.<br>
</p><hr><p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title="">[1]</a> Greg Ganssle, <i>Our Deepest Desires</i> (Downers Grove, IL: 2017), 22.
</p><p><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title="">[2]</a> Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in <i>Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell</i> (New York: Modern Library, 1927), 2-3.
</p>

				

				
        

              <div class="social-box"> </div>
              <div class="social-box">
                <!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
                <div class="addthis_sharing_toolbox"></div>               
              </div>

                            
                            <hr />
              <h4>ALSO ON SEANMCDOWELL.ORG</h4>
                            <ul class="img-list row">
                                                        </ul>
              
            </section>
          </div>
          <div class="columns large-1 hide-for-medium-only hide-for-small-only">&nbsp;</div>
          <div class="columns large-3 medium-4 small-12">
            <aside id="sidebar">

                            <!-- Begin MailChimp Signup Form -->
              <div id="mc_embed_signup">

              <form action="//seanmcdowell.us11.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=a000cca700124387998edab73&amp;id=fe363fcff2" method="post" id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" name="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" class="validate feedback-form" target="_blank" novalidate>
              <h2>SUBSCRIBE!</h2>
                <fieldset>
                  <label for="latest">Get the lastest from Sean in your inbox free!</label>
                  <input type="email" value="" name="EMAIL" placeholder="EMAIL ADDRESS" class="required email" id="mce-EMAIL">

                <div id="mce-responses" class="clear">
                  <div class="response" id="mce-error-response" style="display:none"></div>
                  <div class="response" id="mce-success-response" style="display:none"></div>
                </div>    <!-- real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups-->
                  <input type="hidden" name="b_a000cca700124387998edab73_fe363fcff2" tabindex="-1" value="">
                  <input type="submit" value="SUBSCRIBE" name="subscribe" id="mc-embedded-subscribe" class="btn">
                </fieldset>
              </form>
              </div>
              <!--End mc_embed_signup-->
              <small><a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/feed.rss"><i class="fa fa-rss"></i> RSS FEED</a></small>
              <hr />              
              <section class="popular-posts">
              <!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
              <div class="addthis_recommended_vertical"></div>
                            <hr />              
              <section class="tweets">
                <h2><i class="fa fa-twitter"></i> SEAN TWEETS</h2>
                <a href="https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @Sean_McDowell</a>

                <a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell" data-widget-id="610442113919131648" data-chrome="noborders transparent noscrollbar noheader" data-tweet-limit="3">Tweets by @Sean_McDowell</a>
                <script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");</script>
              </section>

            </aside>
          </div>
          <div class="columns large-1 hide-for-medium-only hide-for-small-only">&nbsp;</div>
        </div>

      </div>
      <div class="plugin-box"> </div>
    </div>
    <!--main ends-->
    <!--footer starts-->
    <footer id="footer">
      <div class="container">
        <div class="row">
          <div class="columns text-center">
          	<p class="copyright">Copyright &#174; 2018 Sean McDowell. All Rights Reserved. Contact.</p><a href="#" class="partner-logo"><img src="/images/content/img-partner-logo-1.png" width="274" height="36" alt="image description"></a>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </footer>
    <!--footer ends-->
  </div>
  <!--wrapper ends-->
  <!--jQuery library-->
  <script src="/js/jquery.min.js"></script>
  <script src="/js/plugins/jquery.placeholder.min.js"></script>
  <script src="/js/plugins/foundation.min.js"></script>
  <script src="/js/plugins/modernizr.min.js"></script>
  <!--include plugins-->
  <script src="/js/jquery.add-class.js"></script>
  <script src="/js/jquery.form-validator.js"></script>
  <!--init plugins-->
  <script src="/js/jquery.init-plugins.js"></script>

  <!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
  <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=ra-557f0a74cbf3433e" async="async"></script>

  <script>
  (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
  (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
  m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
  })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

  ga('create', 'UA-64124118-1', 'auto');
  ga('send', 'pageview');

  </script>

  <script>
  (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
  (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
  m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
  })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

  ga('create', 'UA-17418627-51', 'auto');
  ga('send', 'pageview');

  </script>

<!-- This site is converting visitors into subscribers and customers with OptinMonster - http://optinmonster.com --><script>var om58fec8616419a,om58fec8616419a_poll=function(){var r=0;return function(n,l){clearInterval(r),r=setInterval(n,l)}}();!function(e,t,n){if(e.getElementById(n)){om58fec8616419a_poll(function(){if(window['om_loaded']){if(!om58fec8616419a){om58fec8616419a=new OptinMonsterApp();return om58fec8616419a.init({"s":"7368.58fec8616419a","staging":0,"dev":0,"beta":0});}}},25);return;}var d=false,o=e.createElement(t);o.id=n,o.src="//a.optnmstr.com/app/js/api.min.js",o.async=true,o.onload=o.onreadystatechange=function(){if(!d){if(!this.readyState||this.readyState==="loaded"||this.readyState==="complete"){try{d=om_loaded=true;om58fec8616419a=new OptinMonsterApp();om58fec8616419a.init({"s":"7368.58fec8616419a","staging":0,"dev":0,"beta":0});o.onload=o.onreadystatechange=null;}catch(t){}}}};(document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.documentElement).appendChild(o)}(document,"script","omapi-script");</script><!-- / OptinMonster -->

</body>
</html>
