Descartes says, "I think therefore I am," but Pascal reflects on our place in the universe. Whatever "I" is it is both infinite and infinitesimal - the same with our thoughts, feelings, etc. Nothing about us is remotely definable because our place in space and time is undefinable. It stands to reason therefore that if we cannot define something we do not know what it is. And if we do not know what it is we are talking about, we are talking only gibberish. Further, if a thought cannot be truly defined then who can be certain a true thought has taken place? No wonder Pascal says about his contemporary, "Descartes useless and uncertain" (Pensees, 78).
But then what is known? Descartes searched for what is indubitable, but what he found he cannot define and therefore knows nothing about. What Descartes found is that a person of uncertain existence seems to have a thought of uncertain existence. The problem lies in the very nature of existence - Descartes cannot define that either, nor to my knowledge has anyone since. If Pascal is correct, then all that is called "knowledge" is uncertain.
This is why Pascal talks about a mathematical mind and an intuitive mind. The mathematical mind, the mind of process, is limited to process. Our world today claims that knowledge comes out of the mathematical mind, but that is completely false. It is this "mathematical knowledge" that the paragraph above calls into doubt. Rather all knowledge comes from the intuitive mind. Descartes intuits that there is "thought" and from that he processes there must be an "I" to think. But in the end it is the intuitive mind from which all knowledge comes.
But what then is this "intuitive mind"?
It is belief, or faith, and it is a gift.
Our problem in philosophy today is that human arrogance has necessitated that existence must be essential to everything that exists - and to the mathematical mind that would only seem to make sense. Yet existence is not essential to anything that is given. Everything given must be given from something already in existence. But it is better to say "created" than "given" in this context because we are not talking about one eternal thing giving another eternal thing, rather we are talking about something which at one time did not exist becoming existent for the use of another thing. If something did not exist at one time, then existence could not be essential to it, existence must preside outside of it, its existence is, and always will be, a gift. Something therefore must be eternal and able to give this gift of existence, and to give it in such a way as existence is continuous, or at least appears to be. The Christian God could certainly fill this role, and He identifies Himself as "I AM". God identifies Himself as the one who exists and gives existence.
But I must remember that even all of these thoughts, as all thoughts, can only be believed. They are gifts. Yet what if the gifts are wrong? What if I am being deceived? No doubt the enemy of the Giver of Truth would be called the Father of Lies. And lies would be the enemy of existence itself. And truth would be so absolute, so complete, dare we say so holy?, that any imperfection would a mistake in the very grounds of the existence of everything.
Could it be that Christ can to restore existence to those who would believe? Could it be that belief in the truth is the very grounds for existence, so that there truly is only one way to "salvation"?
More probably needs to be said about this, but I believe my wife and daughter just came home.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sacraments
The mere fact that sacraments don’t rely on words gives them a sort of ability to transcend human language and proclaim the gospel in ways that human beings themselves could never do.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Communal Nature of Sin
Does all sin have an inherently communal nature?
As I began to think about the significance of the Christmas story my mind drifted again towards that little-spoken-of event when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary (Luke 1:35). Normally I quickly jerk my mind back to the task at hand, probably for the reasons that some people might already be uncomfortable reading this blog. But this time, I allowed my mind to wander, trying to avoid anything sacrilegious while still contemplating the significance of this event. The question of original sin occurred to me, and why didn't original sin infect Mary's newly developing baby? I'm not the first to wonder about this. Some theologians have blamed the man's seed, or the lust involved in conception. I've never found either argument convincing. But as I dismissed those ideas again in my musings, I came across an idea I haven't heard before (although maybe others have?). What if it is the interaction of male and female - and I don't mean the act of intercourse - that is the root of sin? Genesis 1:27 quickly dismisses the thought that mixing male and female automatically makes sin the way that mixing blue and yellow automatically makes green. After all, God made male and female together and in His image, and in Gen. 2:22 - 3:4 Adam and Eve live together without sin. But then we get to Gen. 3:5 and see that human sin had a communal element right from the start - the serpent and Eve, then Even and Adam. Could it be that Satan's own fall from grace entailed the other apostate angels? Could it be that Jesus was exempt from original sin because the Holy Spirit created a human not out of a communal event between two creatures (a strange way to think of intercourse, I admit) but instead Jesus was born out of only one creature? Does it take at least two creatures to make sin? Is sin perhaps the event and result of one creature using its God-given abilities to promote the decay (the reversal of creation ex nihilo) of another creature? And finally, does Pentecost reverse this by Christ's giving us the Holy Spirit so that now through the creative powers of the Holy Spirit we can actually build each other up with our spiritual gifts, restoring the Triune God's created intent in each other, rather than reversing creation in each other?
To be clear - I'm not trying to teach these things by any means, I'm just putting these questions out there so that perhaps someone might read them and correct me if I'm heading into an sort of dangerous territory.
As I began to think about the significance of the Christmas story my mind drifted again towards that little-spoken-of event when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary (Luke 1:35). Normally I quickly jerk my mind back to the task at hand, probably for the reasons that some people might already be uncomfortable reading this blog. But this time, I allowed my mind to wander, trying to avoid anything sacrilegious while still contemplating the significance of this event. The question of original sin occurred to me, and why didn't original sin infect Mary's newly developing baby? I'm not the first to wonder about this. Some theologians have blamed the man's seed, or the lust involved in conception. I've never found either argument convincing. But as I dismissed those ideas again in my musings, I came across an idea I haven't heard before (although maybe others have?). What if it is the interaction of male and female - and I don't mean the act of intercourse - that is the root of sin? Genesis 1:27 quickly dismisses the thought that mixing male and female automatically makes sin the way that mixing blue and yellow automatically makes green. After all, God made male and female together and in His image, and in Gen. 2:22 - 3:4 Adam and Eve live together without sin. But then we get to Gen. 3:5 and see that human sin had a communal element right from the start - the serpent and Eve, then Even and Adam. Could it be that Satan's own fall from grace entailed the other apostate angels? Could it be that Jesus was exempt from original sin because the Holy Spirit created a human not out of a communal event between two creatures (a strange way to think of intercourse, I admit) but instead Jesus was born out of only one creature? Does it take at least two creatures to make sin? Is sin perhaps the event and result of one creature using its God-given abilities to promote the decay (the reversal of creation ex nihilo) of another creature? And finally, does Pentecost reverse this by Christ's giving us the Holy Spirit so that now through the creative powers of the Holy Spirit we can actually build each other up with our spiritual gifts, restoring the Triune God's created intent in each other, rather than reversing creation in each other?
To be clear - I'm not trying to teach these things by any means, I'm just putting these questions out there so that perhaps someone might read them and correct me if I'm heading into an sort of dangerous territory.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Trinity
I'm working on a sermon for Lord's Day 8 of the Heidelberg Catechism - which is on the Trinity. In my studies I ran across a good question from Randal Working's book, From Rebellion to Redemption, which by the way is an excellent resource for stirring the mind through the Catechism. His question was: What are some analogies you’ve heard of the Trinity? Are any of these satisfying? Do you see any limitations to them?
Here is my answer, I hope it's clear enough without writing a full essay, I'd like your thoughts:
Analogies: Tripartite human being. Egg. Water (vapor, liquid, ice). Social Trinity / Perichoresis / Family. Time.
Of these I still like the Tripartite human being the best, but only the way I myself first thought of it as a teenager – body to Christ, mind to Father, spirit to Holy Spirit. The Platonic tripartite human doesn’t really work well for me (spirit, emotions, intellect) - where's the body? The Bipartite human being seems to combine my ideas of mind and spirit into the concept soul (or do I have the terms "soul" and "spirit" switched around?), and it has some advantages, but also some disadvantages. What I primarily like about my body, mind, spirit analogy to God is that we are made in God’s image, so it’s not unlikely that there is a Trinitarian element to each of us. I feel this gives my analogy a biblical advantage somewhat. The analogy avoids tritheism because your mind, for example, contains in a very real sense the full essence of the whole you, even though it is not physical as the body, or spiritual as the spirit. Yet the mind is not devoid of those aspects because the mind works through the physical brain, and certainly expresses something of the spirit as well. Likewise when we see someone’s body we call it by that human’s name because it contains the whole human, and gives it's own expression to the mind and spirit. And the spirit of a human is not just related to the mind of the human, and we know this because the body also has powerful effects on our spirit (just think of what physical acts of sin do to our spirits!). So the analogy avoids tritheism because the human is not really three parts (despite the title “tripartite”), but it is one essential being in three aspects. But I don't really like the word "aspects" there, because it's not like human beings exist in three modes or something. So, the analogy also avoids modalism, because the human being is all three at the same time, and all the time. We would avoid subordinationism with the analogy if only we would give up our foolish ideas that the human body is subordinate to the mind and spirit (in reality we can point to just as many times when it seems the mind or spirit is subordinate to the body, as when we are very hungry and become tempermental). And we also avoid the error of blending everything together completely (can’t think of the name of this heresy right now), because the body, spirit, and mind of a human are clearly different from each other and have different primary functions even though they are all completely involved in the primary functions of the other two as well.
The analogy does finally break down though, because the human being is just one person, whereas God is three persons and one God. We have to be careful about that so as not to go so far with this analogy that we forget that Jesus is fully human with His own fully human soul (or should I say mind and spirit?). In other words, I don't want my trinitarian analogy to be taken so far that it messes with orthodox Christology.
Here is my answer, I hope it's clear enough without writing a full essay, I'd like your thoughts:
Analogies: Tripartite human being. Egg. Water (vapor, liquid, ice). Social Trinity / Perichoresis / Family. Time.
Of these I still like the Tripartite human being the best, but only the way I myself first thought of it as a teenager – body to Christ, mind to Father, spirit to Holy Spirit. The Platonic tripartite human doesn’t really work well for me (spirit, emotions, intellect) - where's the body? The Bipartite human being seems to combine my ideas of mind and spirit into the concept soul (or do I have the terms "soul" and "spirit" switched around?), and it has some advantages, but also some disadvantages. What I primarily like about my body, mind, spirit analogy to God is that we are made in God’s image, so it’s not unlikely that there is a Trinitarian element to each of us. I feel this gives my analogy a biblical advantage somewhat. The analogy avoids tritheism because your mind, for example, contains in a very real sense the full essence of the whole you, even though it is not physical as the body, or spiritual as the spirit. Yet the mind is not devoid of those aspects because the mind works through the physical brain, and certainly expresses something of the spirit as well. Likewise when we see someone’s body we call it by that human’s name because it contains the whole human, and gives it's own expression to the mind and spirit. And the spirit of a human is not just related to the mind of the human, and we know this because the body also has powerful effects on our spirit (just think of what physical acts of sin do to our spirits!). So the analogy avoids tritheism because the human is not really three parts (despite the title “tripartite”), but it is one essential being in three aspects. But I don't really like the word "aspects" there, because it's not like human beings exist in three modes or something. So, the analogy also avoids modalism, because the human being is all three at the same time, and all the time. We would avoid subordinationism with the analogy if only we would give up our foolish ideas that the human body is subordinate to the mind and spirit (in reality we can point to just as many times when it seems the mind or spirit is subordinate to the body, as when we are very hungry and become tempermental). And we also avoid the error of blending everything together completely (can’t think of the name of this heresy right now), because the body, spirit, and mind of a human are clearly different from each other and have different primary functions even though they are all completely involved in the primary functions of the other two as well.
The analogy does finally break down though, because the human being is just one person, whereas God is three persons and one God. We have to be careful about that so as not to go so far with this analogy that we forget that Jesus is fully human with His own fully human soul (or should I say mind and spirit?). In other words, I don't want my trinitarian analogy to be taken so far that it messes with orthodox Christology.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Free Will & God's Sovereignty
Hey, I finally figured out how to leave a new post!
Something hit me sort of randomly as a prepared a sermon on Psalm 33 this afternoon. Psalm 33 has little to do with our free will, so far as I can tell, but this came to me anyway...
Though God does not interfere with our free will, He does always guide the consequences of our choices. He prefers to guide them with the creation order that He established in the beginning, because He loves His creation. However, because He loves His creation, and because we humans have tampered with the order and gone against it, God will at times step in to redirect the consequences of our actions, so that the outcome will be "for the good of those who love Him" (Rom. 8:28). For it was the order of things before the fall that all things did work for the good of all, because all loved God. Now His redirecting of consequences happens especially in the cases where the intentions of the heart are truly good and desiring to honor God, but the choice itself, because of our ignorance or general brokenness, fails to meet the honorable intent. As I examine these cases of foolish choices based on noble intent in my own life, I find this to often be the case; God will show me clearly the foolishness of my choice, yet He will also answer my prayer when in great humiliation I fall on my knees and ask Him to not let the outcome happen as it then appears it should naturally happen. In these cases I've found God almost always answers my prayer affirmatively and directs the outcome to something much closer to what I had first intended. In fact often He directs the outcome to be something much greater than I intended! Which perhaps is all just another way of saying that when sin abounds, grace abounds even more!
Something hit me sort of randomly as a prepared a sermon on Psalm 33 this afternoon. Psalm 33 has little to do with our free will, so far as I can tell, but this came to me anyway...
Though God does not interfere with our free will, He does always guide the consequences of our choices. He prefers to guide them with the creation order that He established in the beginning, because He loves His creation. However, because He loves His creation, and because we humans have tampered with the order and gone against it, God will at times step in to redirect the consequences of our actions, so that the outcome will be "for the good of those who love Him" (Rom. 8:28). For it was the order of things before the fall that all things did work for the good of all, because all loved God. Now His redirecting of consequences happens especially in the cases where the intentions of the heart are truly good and desiring to honor God, but the choice itself, because of our ignorance or general brokenness, fails to meet the honorable intent. As I examine these cases of foolish choices based on noble intent in my own life, I find this to often be the case; God will show me clearly the foolishness of my choice, yet He will also answer my prayer when in great humiliation I fall on my knees and ask Him to not let the outcome happen as it then appears it should naturally happen. In these cases I've found God almost always answers my prayer affirmatively and directs the outcome to something much closer to what I had first intended. In fact often He directs the outcome to be something much greater than I intended! Which perhaps is all just another way of saying that when sin abounds, grace abounds even more!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Cents, Scents, or Sense
Warning: This sight contains my two cents. The thoughts here might make sense, but they might just make a stink (scents). You will have to decide for yourself, and when you do I hope you'll respond.
This blog is about me giving and you giving back. Hopefully we can build each other up.
God bless whoever reads,
Scott
This blog is about me giving and you giving back. Hopefully we can build each other up.
God bless whoever reads,
Scott
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