Medieval Thinking

Surely we in the twenty first century do not think like those in medieval time period, right? We don't set up Inquisitions, severely abuse lower classes, or wage Holy Wars. But before you get too haughty, look at the next two frameworks for thinking, based on medieval cosmology, and see if you actually are more like those folks from way back when than you might have guessed. First, look at what this cosmology was. The prevailing (and ruling) thoughts was the egocentric notion that the earth was the center of everything, and the universe truly does revolve around us (reminds us of our teenage years).
"The waters lie above it, the air above that, and fire soars upward to the heavens. . . " beyond the moon lies the fixed "crystal spheres [stars]" and beyond that is where God and the angels reside (Primack and Abrams in The View from the Center of the Universe).

Note that the physical location of everything is very ordered. This helped shape the strongest framework of thought of the day, which is to say that everything was put into its place by God. Kings were made kings by God, peons were made peons by God, and one simply lived out the role God placed them in. To deny the divine right of the king was the same as completely tearing down their universe as they saw it. Now for us, especially in America with the American dream, we no longer think of things quite like this, and certainly not for politics or occupation, but I think that we still see this paradigm exhibited to some extent. Questions such as "What is our 'calling'?" or " What did God intend for us to do with our life?" or any sort of questions of destiny or fate all demonstrate this same idea that the positions and places we fill or will fill is all orderly and preordained by God.

The second framework for thinking comes from when the medieval cosmology came crashing down due to the work of Galileo and his contemporaries. What happened was what is considered the Cartesian Bargain. This was applicable to the culture and political structure of the time, but it continues to permeate many folks' thoughts today. What this agreement boils down to is a divorce between the spiritual and the physical. At the time, this meant that scientists would be allowed to work on explaining the physical, but leave any spiritual implications out of it. Similarly, religion would not attempt to overstep its bounds and use their religious views to explain physical phenomena. I see this divorce everywhere today, and certainly has had chain reactions within the past two hundred years that affect us today. For instance, take the common reaction of the church to the Big Bang cosmology. Here, instead of seeing this as evidence for a creation event, secular scientists make no effort to interpret the powerful meaning of their discovery, and Christians simultaneously condemn the scientific data, facts, and theories because it doesn't fit with one particular prominent religious view. Today, much work is being done to see how chemical changes within the brain affect spiritual experience. I will make two predictions: First, scientists will use this to explain away the validity of spiritual encounters, and second, Christians will condemn the science, come up with poor excuses for found data, and not even consider the possibility that perhaps God reaches us through physical means and not by magic. As a final example, go to any church, talk loudly about evolution, note the angry or offended expressions, and then see how many of those folks have read anything about the theory (this does not include reading a dismantling of the theory without reading an unbiased explanation or defense). This is the divorce between science and religion that occured in the 1600's still seen today.

Are we more civilized and sophisticated then the people who lived through and shaped medieval times? Certainly. But I think it important to recognize how these people still shape many contemporary thoughts.

Fire Fall Down By Hillsong United

Some of the lyrics to a song we sang this morning were "Your fire fall down fall down on us as we pray as we seek." It begs the question, what is meant by fire? When we sing this, what are we intending? I reckon many would say it refers to the Holy Spirit. In the Bible, the H.S. apparently comes down on the disciples in the form of flames. Personally, I have never experienced nor heard testimony to anything like that happening, so to me I cannot consider that to mean the Holy Spirit. Indeed, I imagine if I were to really penetrate the thoughts of those who answered Holy Spirit, I would not find that they believe and expect the Holy Spirit to come down on them manifested as fire, as they would claim to believe happened to the disciples so many centuries ago. For me, when I sang it (in my head- I can't play bass as well as I would like and still sing at the same time!) I fully intended it to be understanding. So much of God is unknown and convoluted by men and their belief systems, I would love nothing more than to catch a glimmer of truth about our deity. I'd be curious to know what each person's "fire" is that they want from God, that thing that they truly seek.

Intersection of Justice and Forgiveness

What a difficult question. My answer is this: Do what is beneficial. If someone needs punishment to learn a lesson, give them punishment. If the person is truly repentant, offer forgiveness to teach them grace. If others need to know that punishment will follow particular actions, proffer punishment. In each scenario, try to find what will do the most good. In a sense, we leave feelings out of it and try to look objectively at the situation and make a good decision. Of course, this is extremely easy to implement, assuming your God.

Talent vs. Character

Alright, so my fellow graduate students have prompted this thought with the following quote (which is not quite a real quote, but gets the general idea across): "I'm not dropping the class because I'm stupid but because I don't want to do the work." This represents an attitude which I have seen in other students as well.

The general idea is that a person would rather be thought to have high traits that one cannot have any control over rather than thought to have high traits in areas where we can control. I can see the logic in it as well. If you think yourself smart, you think that you can overcome anything that you need to overcome, whereas if you are just a hard worker, you may or may not be able to overcome a particular obstacle.

However, I've never seen an inspirational film on a very talented person who decided to go the easy route in life. I have seen a film about a person who was born with no arms or legs and yet is able to function autonomously. Which commands the greater respect, the above mentioned man or a Stephen Hawking flipping burgers? Of course the bright and talented man could overcome more obstacles than the dull-witted or clumsy man, so perhaps in this line of thought the talented might have a good self-esteem.

In the end however, I believe that self-esteem, self-worth, and the amount of us respect one commands is achieved from what has accomplished, what actions one has taken, what obstacles have been overcome, as opposed to gifts one was born with that were not earned or worked for.

Yet at the same time, I believe most of us would rather to be thought of as smart or naturally athletic than a hard worker. This is the paradox upon which our self-esteem rests.

B-I-B-L-E

So John chapter 8 begins with a footnote that says that the earliest manuscripts and witnesses do not have the following account. So, should we treat this with as much respect as the rest of the Bible, or do we believe some monks somewhere in the 5th century (when this first appeared) made the story up and put it in there? How are we to know what should be in the New Testament and what should not? How do we know that any of this is truly the directed word of God? After all, none of them even claim to be such books. They just claimed to be accounts of people's experiences with God, or letters of instruction from one man to others. Whatever may be said about the rest of the NT, one must reach a conclusion about this passage in John 8. Is it authentically from God or is it just a good story added in there? It's easy just to accept it because that's how Zondervan packages the Bible, but is that a sound reason? We must either believe
1. God, although deciding to use the written word to communicate to his people, decided to rely on the oral tradition for just one story, until the 5th century where he decided it was the right time and divinely inspired someone to stick it into his holy text.
2. Man inserted this story by his own volition. While this story is good and may be very instructional in figuring God out, it is nonetheless a fictional piece put in there by man's own volition.
3. Oral tradition handed this story down, and while it's not something from the mouth of God, it is still a true account.
I started to write a fourth option which was that God inspired others to include this later, but what would be the reasoning for that? Did God forget to put it in there the first time? I don't think so. So I hold to the original three options. But I think that each person needs to think about it and not brush it off.

Decision Making

So, the question is as follows: Is there any point in asking God to help us make decisions? Would God affect our thinking so that we decide to go one way on something we normally would go the other?
This would be only too great, but I think that although God certainly has the potential to be able to tweak our minds, I think that that is the one area God will not invade and control. After all, if he were willing to make up our minds for us, would there ever be any sin? If he were willing to enter our heads and make us decide to do or not do certain things, then Jesus wouldn't have had to come down and die for us, would he? So it seems to me that if God was willing to go to such extremes by having Jesus die rather than affecting our decisions, then he's pretty determined that we are going to be responsible for our own decisions.

Bottom line: If God will make our decisions for us, then we have quite assuredly lost our free will. I think that is the whole thing about the human experiment: that God gives us free will and sees what we do with it.

At any rate, I know that God has helped us along with the decision making process by giving us a conscience and reasoning abilities. And I can't explain how, so it's pure hypothesis on my part, but I am convinced that God will act on our behalf and help us make the right decisions, whether it's God removing temptation from us, our God putting us through experiences that will help us grow in wisdom, or by putting people in our lives who will give us good advice or be a good example, or some other means I have yet to realize.

And yet, while I don't want to put God in a box, I cannot fathom he will make our choices for us.

Grossman Lives Up To His Name

Ah Rex oh Rex, our quarterback Rex,
I'd ship you out of Chicago, using FedEx

Your throws I admit are definitely the best
They hit players right in their chest
Your throws are exact, straight and true
If only you'd throw to the players in Blue!