Poor Nietzsche – so wrong!!

Tags

"Kant's categorical imperative", "self-destructiveness", humility, Nietzsche

⁶ With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? ⁷ Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  ⁸ He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6.6-8)

These were the verses mentioned in a men’s breakfast I attended.  Verses 6-7 refer to what some people, during the time of Micah, thought might be appropriate behavior for drawing close to Jehovah – animal sacrifices, gifts of immense amounts of olive oil, and even the human sacrifice of one’s first born child.  This kind of behavior is rejected.  Rather, we are to do justice, practice mercy and be humble.

Justice, mercy and humility are necessary now; they were necessary then.  To do justice, one stands up for what might not be a popular position, at least as far as the power holders and brokers are concerned.  In fact, even the general population might not want justice in all respects; it could discomfit the majority who benefit from the injustice practiced by the few in positions of power.

Humility challenges the validity of self-centeredness.  In reality, self-centeredness is self-destructive.  When one wants life to be “all about me”, it can only work if not everyone is permitted to adhere to the “all about me” philosophy.  If everyone followed it, we would live in anarchy that destroys society, at least until people were willing to do some self sacrifice to achieve some kind of social contract.

Selfishness to any degree is destructive, and complete selfishness destroys all social relationships.  Picture with me for just a moment what would  happen if complete selfishness were taken as normative, reaching the status of Kant’s categorical imperative or Jesus’ Golden Rule.  Society would be in free-fall with chaos reigning supreme!!  Selfishness can only work if not everyone is permitted to be selfish!!!  Poor Nietzsche was so wrong!!!

 

 

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Asking Joe for help with a brake job

Tags

parallels, prayer

To what degree is conversation among friends analogous to our prayer communication with God?  For example, if I ask Joe to help me fix the brakes on my car, the request could indicate several things such as –

1. “I need your advice but I will do the actual work.”
2. “I need some money to buy all the parts I need, or to pay for the job to be done at a car repair shop.”
3. “I need your physical strength to help me do what I can’t do on my own.”
4. “I need you to actually do the physical work, because I am too incapacitated or sick to do it myself.”

In other words, my situation conditions what I hope Joe will do in response to my request.  It appears that this situation with my friend and me has a parallel with my prayers of request to God, in which I ask God to do something.  Consequently, I find myself asking the following rhetorical questions –

1. Does prayer require me to be somewhat self analytical?
2. Does God not understand the reason for my prayer if I understand it or not, and respond according to what He knows is behind the prayer, not just to the words?
3. In fact, are the words of the prayer not just a part (perhaps a small part) of what is really going on?

0080107

A hot stove and apologetics!!

Tags

"verifying the starting point", apologetics

Over the past several weeks, two situations have crossed my path.  Both of them, in their own way, collaborate with a particular way of looking at the role of evidence in establishing the truthfulness of a premise, or a hypothesis.

One situation was hearing a person refer to how reality confirms or verifies the truthfulness of Scripture.  The gentleman used the analogy of parents typically teaching their small children to be careful with a stove.  On one hand, the parents say to the child that the stove can become hot enough to burn the child’s fingers.  With that statement ringing in the child’s ears, the parents carefully move the child’s hand close enough to the stove for the child to begin sensing the stove’s heat.  It is a case of the parents’ words being verified by the reality of a stove that is actually very hot.  The verification of the truthfulness of what the parent says about the stove is not based on previous statements made by the parents about other things.  The verification is, rather, based on the stove actually being hot enough to burn the child’s hand.

The second situation was seeing Ronald Nash’s comments in chapter 3 of World-Views in Conflict on how inductive reasoning works.  He points out that “as the amount of confirmatory information increases, so does the probability of the truth of the hypothesis increase.  A large number of observations taken together provides a cumulative case enhancing the likelihood that the hypothesis is true.” (p. 68).  [BTW, I recommend Nash’s book to you.]

This approach has, for a long time, appeared to me valuable when considering how apologetics should be done.  The approach is parallel to how empiricism dovetails with rationally deduced truth.  The major premise in syllogistic deductive reasoning is verified with empirical testing.  Rather than “turning to the Bible” to “prove” that God exists, hypothesis verification does things just the opposite way.  Yes, the Bible is God’s book.  But, the proof for the claim that God is the ultimate author of the Bible is in the pudding.  When one lives according to the Bible, reality verifies the Bible’s truthfulness.

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Notes to students – a small potpourri

Tags

"self-giving", "wasted reading", miracles

• Perhaps we must always keep in mind that even in giving to others, we will never be able to give them what only Jesus can give them.  If we have false expectations concerning the results of our own self-giving, we may end up being guilty of the blasphemy of thinking ourselves as replacements for Jesus.  Wouldn’t that be both tragic and ironic if we began by simply wanting to be self-giving like Jesus is!!! 
• I hope you have found Bruce both provocative and instructive.  It’s highly unlikely you will agree with all he writes, but that is fine.  As I have told other students, don’t bother buying a book if you know from the get go that you will agree with everything, and it only repeats what you already know.
• Since we see in the Gospels frequent references to miracles that are not described in detail, we may get the idea that Jesus’ miracles were happening every ten minutes (a slight exaggeration there!!)  Furthermore, we may look around us at our time in history and say there are not that many of those “spectacular miracles” happening in our world.  But, let me suggest that the miracles were not happening in the time of Jesus like we may imagine.  They were infrequent enough that people were still amazed, yet abundant enough to indicate that Jesus was very different from other people.  In other words, the miracles of the Bible are still unusual events, even in the times that they happened. 

 

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Money and mind

Tags

mind, space, time

One person I know recently summarized his philosophy of financial freedom by saying, “I have more than enough money to buy all I need and want.  That is due to not needing nor wanting much that I don’t already have.  Consequently, more than just a very little is more than enough.”

It seems to me that this idea has a lot of merit since it points to financial freedom not being as related to money as much as it is related to a state of mind.

(0070721)

 

Most of us are familiar with the expression “the space-time continuum.”  Few of us have reason to deny that this term has validity; we humans certainly do live in a reality that occupies space ( we have bodies, after all!!), and our activities succeed other activities (we use the calendar!!).

But, beyond the space – time reality, is there something more, another reality that is as relevant to human existence as are the time and space realities?

Allow me to flesh this out just a tad.  Time is the reality that is required for answering the question When?  Space is the reality that is required for answering the question Where?  Is there another reality that is required for answering the question Why (What’s the purpose)?  I am not sure what word we need for this reality that would work as well for it as the words time and space work for their realities.  Maybe the word Mind would work as well as any, but that is just a guess at this point.

But, what do you think?

 

 

(0061202)

 

Clear communication and homemade ink blots

Tags

"thought experiments", communication, cultures, labels

One of language’s various functions is the significant one of providing labels for “things” that have multiple characteristics.   For example, imagine what it would be if  there were no word for what we in English call “apple” —  Every time we wanted to refer to this item of multiple characteristics that, at in our time and space “apple” points to, we would have to describe the phenomenon in all its characteristics and functions.  What a laborious task!!.  Without this labeling feature of language, we would, perhaps, be unable to communicate very much at all due to the time it would take!!!

The time and energy saver that comes along with having verbal labels also has a down side.  Labels (or verbal pointers, if you wish) depend on observations having been made of what is external to us.  And, that becomes a problem because we “labelers” are always limited in our observations due to the finitude and perversity of our sensorial and rational apparata.

I experienced that one day in a class dealing with cultural distinctives.  I divided the class into four groups, with all the groups having the same equivalent of a Rorschach ink blot.  (They are easy to make with an old fashion ink pen, a piece of paper that can be folded in half once you have splattered on the paper some ink from the pen, and time for the ink to dry before making copies for everyone).  Each group had the task of 1) pretending that their ink blot was the sum total of all reality, 2) labeling everything they could identify on the ink blot using either completely invented words, or words already familiar to them.  Then, we compared the results.

Without referring to all that this little experiment taught about cultural distinctives (since each group was its own microcosmic culture), allow me to mention just the following – the labels they all invented for what they observed as members of their own “new” culture did three things. First, the labels simplified communication.  Second, the labels established unintended limits on what most members of the group would later observe about their reality.  Third, the labels used by each group could, and did, make cross cultural communication a dicey endeavor.  The four groups all were working with the same reality, but none of them had the same set of phenomena that the other groups had labeled.

What the previous paragraphs describe also has application to relationships even between individuals.  We may not be communicating nearly as well as we think we are, even if that other person is the one we most love.  Our “worlds” of perceived reality hopefully overlap, but they most likely will not be identical!!

 

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The Cross of Ice

Tags

cross, death, forgiveness, vows

If worse came to worst, what would be our “heart of heart” answer to “Would you allow yourself to be put to death in order to be faithful to Jesus Christ?”  The question is valid, although we hope such a scenario never plays out in our lives.  Let’s think beyond what our first instinctive answer might be.

The fact is that a vow to die for Christ, if such became necessary, expresses our sentiments / commitments at the moment of saying it.  We will only know if that sentiment is on-going when the time for dying for Jesus actually presents itself.  This is illustrated with the following summary; perhaps you have heard of it. (But, I want to go beyond what you  maybe have thought.)

Years ago, some Christians had to face a barbaric choice.  They would be placed on ice floating in sub-freezing temperatures with no more than the clothes they were wearing at the time unless they recanted their faith in and loyalty to Jesus.   On the ice, there would be no food.  They would die of either starvation or by freezing to death.

Various Christians vowed to not deny their loyalty to Jesus, and were forcibly place on the floating ice to wait out their impending death.  Their tormentors, close enough to see if anyone raised a recant flag, waited out the developing scenario.  They were ready to “rescue” the one who broke the vow.  At a certain point, one of the men who had said he was willing to die for Christ, recanted, and left the ice assisted by the infidels.

The point of relating this episode is this:  When the “rescued” man first went onto the ice, he was committed to dying for Christ; he was sure he would die for Jesus if necessary.  But, he eventually denied Jesus.  The fellow’s plight and personal “solution” forces us to recognize that we dare not pin too much on the making of a vow.  A vow made before both God and people only measures our righteousness and intentions at the time the vow is made.  Within a day or a little longer, we may not be so righteous.  Our fragility, always present, can rise to the surface.

At that point, we are back to one of the dominant elements in the Christian life – joyful life in God is not found in not sinning (as desirable as that may be), but in being forgiven.  And, each time we ask forgiveness, we have the opportunity to lose pride in self and be even more grateful to the One who died for us on the Cross of ice.

 

 

(0070108)

 

Lose, lose . . . . Win, win

Tags

evil, faith, Mary

When the angel told the virgin Mary about her becoming the mother of Jesus, her acceptance of God’s plan put her into a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.  On one hand, if she would tell people the truth about the conception, she would be judged guilty of blasphemy and stoned to death. On the other hand, if she would not tell the truth about her pregnancy, she could be judged guilty of adultery and stoned to death.  Talk about a lose-lose scenario!!

What Mary was facing is still with us.  The reality of life in our space-time universe is that some dilemmas simply do not have a resolution in and during the space-time universe.  If there were not some kind of existence that exceeds what we currently have, and in which these “lose-lose” scenarios get resolved, evil simply would not be, in a final sense, done away with.  And, if evil weren’t eventually done away with, we would have to admit that evil is either co-existent with God, or perhaps even superior to God.

Who knows if Mary was thinking philosophically during the conversation with the angel.  I have my doubts that she was.  Nonetheless, her answer to Gabriel, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said” (Luke 1.38) indicates that she knew her role vis a vis Jehovah, the God who had plenty of experience in doing away with evil.  Even if in our current existence it was lose-lose, ultimately it would be win-win.

 

(0070108)

 

Short thoughts on long topics

Tags

"critical thinking"

The expression “surrendering your mind to God” can easily be misunderstood.  It certainly does not mean that we are to cease thinking.  Rather, it means that we are to control the topics of our thinking according to God’s agenda.  We are, to some degree, responsible for that about which we think.  This issue is related to the mind-body debate in philosophy which, in part at least, looks for an answer to this question – “Is there ‘something’ in us that is responsible for some of what we think?   If there is, then that means that there is something in us that is vital, but that is not “matter.”  (0050821)

 * * * * *

When addressing some Christian college students, a friend of mine raised the issue of suffering, specifically the suffering that can happen when Christians are persecuted, even violently.  He went to the point of affirming that Christians facing such suffering should not shy away from it, but rejoice in the midst of it.

His statement clearly forces us to think about courageous Christianity.  And, many of us have some degree of doubt about how courageous we would be when facing torture and/or violent death.   Yet, are we treating the issue properly when only personalizing it that way, affirming that we are to rejoice in suffering?

On one hand, how do we rejoice in suffering without promoting injustice, since so much suffering is the result of someone’s immorality?  And, on the other hand, how do we rejoice in suffering and also hate sin, which we should be doing?  I am not sure I have answers to either of these two questions.  (0051012)

 * * * * *

Do you also experience frustration when hearing people present their ideas in an overly simplified way?  (My question, as you see, tells you what I sense in such situations.)   One of the overly simplified presentations is to lay out a false dilemma, saying that there are only two options before us.  In such cases, making an argument for one option automatically negates the opposite option.  On the other hand, a person can negate the case for one of the options, and on that basis alone affirm that the opposite option is valid.

But let’s face it, our decisions rarely involve only two options.  Yet, we want to make things simple, and ignore all the options except two of them.  Flee such over simplification, whether done by a politician, a professor, a preacher, or a prosecutor!!   (0060120)

Appropriate for some, not for all

Tags

worship

There are particular things about God that we need to know. For example, we need to know who and what He is, what He expects from us in moral terms, His provisions for us, His future plans for us as well as the rest of nature, what is involved in becoming related to Him in a positive fashion.  Due to who God is, pursuing the path of obtaining the items mentioned in the previous paragraph is a life-long process.

But knowing about God is not the same as being “at home” in His presence with the knowledge about God that we may have.

That brings us to the issue of corporate worship.  When we worship, both our knowledge about God as well as our personally knowing God are involved.  I find myself asking – Is our worship conditioned by our knowledge about God as well as our being at home with God?  If it is, and I can’t imagine it not being the case, what does this imply for corporate worship?

I ask that question because during a time of corporate worship, the worshippers are all over the map concerning what they know about God, and how much at home they are with God.  What will be appropriate worship for some will not at all be appropriate for others, and it is not a case of cultural or social differences, which simply complicate the matter that much more.

 

0061023

Parents’ prayer for adult children

Tags

"grown children"

At some point in her life, my mother had copied a piece she attributed to Grace Noll Crowell, “A Prayer for Grown Sons.”  Although Joyce and I did not have sons, the sentiment is genderless, and one with which I can identify in reference to my three adult daughters.   I hope the readers will experience the same response.

They are men now, Lord, my hands (at last) are emptied

of the countless tasks required for so long.

And, I am helpless quite before the problems

that grown sons face.  I cannot right earth’s wrongs

Or smooth their pathways, but dear Lord, You can.

Speak to them face to face, as man to man.

 

I have no legacy at all to give them.

But, if my prayer be answered, it will give

Them more than any wealth the world can offer.

I pray “Christ, be their comrade while they live.

Walk with them should they feel they walk alone,

And make your presence daily, hourly, known.

 

Companion them.  I ask for nothing greater

Than this rich blessing for these precious ones;

The (holy) companionship of Christ, a young man

As counselor and guide to these, my sons.

I loose their hands, having done all I could do

And trust them, Lord, implicitly to You.”

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Leaving, or going home?

Tags

death, gratefulness

The following was written over five years ago by a man who was wrestling with life and death questions.  I ran across it within the past several days.  Perhaps the day may come in all of our lives when our conditions will be similar to his.  In the meantime, we can envision, perhaps prepare, and even now identify with some of his thoughts.  [The author made it plain to me that he wishes to be anonymous.  He said he is not looking for sympathy.  He will be gratified, however, if his reflections can strengthen someone, as well as point to the reality that is available to God’s children.]

     The past 7 days have been very difficult.  Last Thursday, when Ann met with her oncologist, he told her that the symptoms of the presence of cancer had jumped over 50%.  The efficacy of her current treatment had bottomed out.  New measures would be necessary, measures that would have more noticeable and negative side effects.  Blood work and scans, some already done, would help him arrive at a new assessment of her situation. 

            We have done some crying together since this new development.  We know that unless the Lord does some kind of miracle, time is getting rather short for us.  Daily I pray more times than I bother counting for Ann’s healing.  I also pray that she will be spared pain.  She is having to deal with the thought of the worsening of the cancer and the resulting death.  She is incredibly gutsy, but death is still death. 

            Last night, when we gave each other the Valentine cards, it was painful, of course.  We talked about facing reality.  But even with that, the reality is more than what the future brings.  Reality is also today.  And, the future is more than sickness and death.  It is also heaven.  Acceptance of reality involves all of that.

            We are committed to enjoying the time we have together.  Yes, I want it to not have any kind of separation, but that is not reality for either of us.  We are both in bodies that are like ships that will eventually sink.  We don’t know precisely when the storm may come for either of us, but we do know that eventually the storm arrives, and the ship goes under.  In the mean time, we enjoy sharing the journey each other has.

            But, I still get very emotional.  Yesterday, when I saw Ann, accompanied by one of her friends, leave for a little outing, I thought of the fact that one day, an angel will accompany her to the Lord’s presence.  Yes, I will miss her beyond words, but she will be better off.  The angel will not as much be taking her away from me, but taking her home.  I will have had the privilege of her presence for these many years, but she is still more God’s daughter than she is my wife.  I have to stop – it hurts too much.

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He really didn’t do that, did he???

Tags

"God's virtues", "spiritual medicine", consultation

I had been waiting for the knock on the door of my small office, especially after hearing the elevator open less than 10 feet away.  The young married couple came in, we greeted each other in the culturally appropriate fashion, and they took a seat in the only two chairs available for guests.

After some small talk about family, church, work, and studies, we got to the purpose of their visit.  They had been married long enough for the novelty to have subsided, and for them to find out things about the other that they had not expected.  I asked questions; they felt comfortable enough to freely paint the picture, as well to ask for my counsel.  They were looking for help.

I opened one of my desk drawers, pulled out several medicine sized bottles, and told them I had a solution for them.  For a month, they should each take one of the small tablets from each bottle, and then return to see me.  They were surprised that this was my recommendation, doubly so when they looked at the labels on the bottles – Patience, Grace, Love, and Joy.

As you are reading this, you may be asking, “What kind of approach is this for problems in interpersonal relationship?  He really didn’t do that, did he?”  You can relax.  The fact is that what I have described is a fictional approach, one that neither you nor I would practice. . . .  or would we???

Unfortunately, this is exactly what we do when we mentally separate the moral virtues of God from God Himself.  We may say things like, “I sensed God’s grace in such and such situation”. . . . “God’s love invaded my soul as I saw those suffering children”. . . . “God gave me an extra dose of His patience when my co-worker insulted me”. . . . “The joy of God was on the faces of those who had just understood who Jesus truly is.”

BUT, the four virtues just mentioned have no existence independently from God.  We experience these virtues as we experience God Himself.  We experience God as we hunger and thirst after Him.  God offers to live Himself in us and manifest Himself through us.  He doesn’t give us a small pill of His love (or other virtue) as if it could be separated from Him, telling us to come back to his office in thirty days so He can fine tune the dosage.

God doesn’t have a cabinet of spiritual medicine.  He is the medicine, personalized!!

0110703

Enjoy the trip

Tags

"a series of trade-offs", balance, options

A little over three weeks from now, I will be heading out, by car, to visit someone I haven’t seen for at least 45 years. I am hoping he will remember me; I think he will. I will take advantage of a GPS that I got several months ago. It was on sale, but so far has been very dependable. This will be the most extensive trip I will have made with the unit.

That GPS will direct me to a destination about 850 miles to the south east of where I live here in Illinois. I could plot on a map the trip “as the birds fly”, and that would give me the shortest route. But, we all know that a road trip of 850 miles does not follow the theoretical “as the birds fly” path. There will be times, maybe only minutes long in some cases, when a bridge across a river or a gorge may have me heading west rather than east. At another moment, a detour due to road conditions will have me head north for several miles rather than south. It is true that by the time I get to my destination, I will be south east from where I began in my home town. But to get there, I will have gone north, south, east, and west.

Every time I change directions on the trip, I will be doing two things. First, I will be rejecting the direction in which I was just going before turning the steering wheel, and secondly, I will be affirming the ultimate goal of the journey. In other words, some of what I was doing in the past, but not all of it, is held onto as I look to the future.

My little trip is an analogy of living Christianly in this space-time world. As I sometimes tell my students, life is a series of trade-offs. You give up some things. You get some things. What you give up may be what got you to where you wanted to be. What you get may be what will take you the rest of the way. You need a body that functions to get you to the prime of life. You need a body that will stop functioning so you can get to heaven. As I said, life is a series of trade-offs in the process of getting to God’s eternal place. Don’t leave home without the GPS. It knows the route better than we do. And, enjoy the trip.

0051009

God, and “What happened to that chair?”

Tags

"God never aging", "losing perspective"

Tom and I were talking the other day, and this was part of it –

• “You wouldn’t believe part of the phone conversation I had with my father last night.”
• “Why?  What happened?”
• “Dad called, which was unusual, since I usually call him.  He wanted to know if I had one of the two University Dining Room chairs that he had bought some years ago.”
• “Why would he think you had one of his chairs?”
• “He said that he only has one of them, and  is wondering if somehow the service staff at the retirement center where he lives has thrown away the other one.”
• “So, what did you tell him?  Have you been hiding something from him?  Seriously, what kind of answer did you give him?
• “I told him that if he doesn’t have it, and my sister doesn’t have it, and I don’t have it,  then  there is nothing that can be done about it anyway.”
• “That sounds pretty cold on your part.  How did he take your comment?”
• “Simple.  He said, ‘But, it is my chair, and I want it!’”

Several days later, I told my wife about Tom’s father and the missing chair.  She made an interesting observation, which was par for the course.  She said that a similar thing occurs with her mother.  She can’t find something, and her immediate reaction is that ‘the cleaning person’ took it.

As we compared notes, we agreed that our parents are, as time goes by, living in a smaller and smaller world.  Things that 15 years ago would have been too small to be important are now taking on key places in their universe.  Although these items don’t deserve their newly attributed importance, a shrinking world has skewed the perspective of what is important and what is trivial.

I continue to ponder that issue.  I trust that I can keep a view of a world that is big.  If I don’t, small things will take on a character they neither really have nor deserve.  When the “big picture” gets lost, so do I!!  Have you ever thought that one of the consequences of God never aging is that He never loses perspective???

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