The Night of a Birthday

To conclude this night, and to put a close to this event, I have one thing to add concerning the great debate between quality and quantity. One may concede that quality has taken the day when we see the vast superficiality of our acts and the momentary delights fall to the wayside. However, another may be taken by force when no feint number has lifted a heavy burden and supplied a vast chimera who comes to brilliant end. But to both I must concede they are wrong.

By God's mercies one may have both quantity and quality. To those who came, I thank you for a lively night full of enjoyable games, embarrassing moments, and comedic injuries. The memories will haunt your paths and provide too many antagonistic comments to keep your lives peaceful. To those who could not attend, I thank you for being by my side for another year and for providing moments to stunt my pride, boost my humility, and grant the gift of a good conversation. And yet, to a few I know that time and distance has kept our conversations short and far between, you have continued to be in my thoughts, prayers, and conversations. I hope and pray that another year will bring greater understanding and greater insight that God provides both quality and quantity, and that one must simply look around to see His blessings.

The Problem of Evil: A Facebook Response

Hello Nealroed (name altered for privacy). I'm not sure how this picture responds to the previous points that I brought up, so I'll count them dropped and "crack on."

There are several things wrong with this picture, and I'll point them out one by one.

First, the conclusion of this image is "Then why is there evil?" This conclusion misrepresents the scope and depth of the problem of evil's proposed claims. The Problem of Evil isn't attempting to ask the Christian "Why is there evil?" it is attempting to draw a logical contradiction between the notion of a OOO God and Evil co-existing. If it were trying to ask, "Then why is there evil?" any answer that has enough explanatory power and explanatory scope would suffice the problem. So, my first point is that this image misrepresents the conclusion found in the Problem of Evil (the version we are speaking of. Granted there are different one depending on the scope, depth, and condition. Our argument concerns the category we call evil.) by exchanging the argument from a logical contradiction with a question concerning the fact.

Second, this image ignores the implications of God's Omni-attributes. I'll begin by listing each attribute, detail the improper implication that the image draws, and then argue why the correct view of that concerned attribute holds and disproves the contradiction.

- God is All Powerful or Omnipotent. The image asks a simple question," Can God stop Evil?" However, this simple question has a hidden facet - namely, the exclusion of 'all'. The question isn't about, "Can God stop some evil," or "Can God stop a evil," or "Can God stop evil once it has begun to act," but really asks, "Can God stop 'all' Evil 'from existing'?" This latter form of the question misses two important qualifications for omnipotence: logical implications and qualifications of other attributes. Here, I'll explain the logical implications, afterwards, I'll explain, along with the other attributes, the collective qualification of the attributes.

As I have argued in prior posts, omnipotence means that God is all-powerful but doesn't necessarily mean that God can to anything and everything. This is because there exists linguistic and logical paradoxes that cannot make sense (notice I don't say, "wouldn't" because can implies ability rather than preference.). Thus, it wouldn't follow that if God is Omnipotent then God could create a square-circle (Unless it's the Triangle Square in Southern California ^_^). So the point here is that omnipotence is qualified by logic. In a little bit, I'll come back and argue how it is qualified by other attributes.

- God is All Knowing or Omniscience. The image asks a straightforward question that has a very straightforward answer. Does God know about evil? Yes. However, this image errs in the aspect of how God's knowledge is understood to be applied. Most often people assume that what God knows is what God does and what God does is what he knows. This image seems to advocate this position because of how it connects this idea of a "test" to the question "why is there evil?" There are several responses to this and I'll delineate them below:

First, this is false because if God knows what he does and does what he knows, then Omniscience is simply a reformation of Omnipotence. But this cannot be the case because it is fairly reasonable to assume that the power to execute an action is not a prerequisite to any knowledge concerning that act. For example, it would be perfectly reasonable to say that I have an epistemological justification that if I throw a baseball at you that you will catch it. However, it seems irrational to respond, after you caught the ball, "You don't have any justification for your belief because you didn't make it happen."

Second, we must understand the knowledge of God in reference to space and time. Now this image is odd because it poses an argument that most people wouldn't even think about arguing because it is so abstract (I applaud the image). What the image is stating is that God knows not only the actualities but also the potentialities of all acts. And if God knows the potentiality of all acts then they would count for the actuality of those acts. Now the problem with what the image states is two part, the first part is what will be addressed here - the problem of an actual act by looking at the nature of God's knowledge in connection with an act - and the second - evil being a test - which will be addressed next.

When we speak about what God knows, in reference to space and time, we are saying that what God knows is what we have freely chosen and that God knows this because he is outside time. So, to exemplify what I mean, the question may be asked, "If God knows that I will steal something tomorrow, then do I really have a choice that I will steal something tomorrow?" The answer is yes because God is outside time. We can further ask, "If, hypothetically, I would not have stolen anything tomorrow would God know it?" The answer is yes, because God is outside time. This notion, without getting too complicated, is derived from the notion that if God is outside of time, he is not bound by the limited scope that time offers to us. We could some this point in one sentence, "What God knows will happen has happened."

Third, the argument that evil is a test fails to understand the nature of evil and free-will. Now, this isn't necessarily a problem with omniscience, but since the connection was made in the image I'll respond to it here. Evil is a moral judgment concerning an act. But the question that necessarily follows is, "Which acts are moral and which acts are not?" And this is where we find the logical necessity for free-will and the principle that "ought implies can."

For a moral universe to exist, the individual must not only be responsible for their own actions but also be capable of acting out those acts. We can find this to be true by rationalizing the concepts of a act that one is not responsible for (how could we say that since Bob stole a car, that Jim did an evil act) or rationalizing the concept of an act being driven, necessarily, by a prior cause (If Bob pushed Jim into the street, then Jim is responsible for committing suicide). So I think it is mistaken to say that evil is simply a "test". More properly, evil is a by-product, necessarily, of a moral universe which necessitates free-will.

- God is All Loving or Omnibenevolent. This attribute ought to be more simple to capture because being all-loving is a common human strife. However, taken in a vacuum, this isn't a Christian concept at all. The image argues that an all-loving God will do anything to demonstrate his love. But this isn't the case. God isn't simply all-loving, but also just.

This is where Islam and Christianity drastically diverge, among other things. The islamic god, Allah, is either just or loving; But when he is just he is unloving and when he is loving he is unjust. Contrarily, the Christian God suffices both love and justice in the substitutionary sacrifice of the cross. This is what makes Christianity insanely unique - that while God is all-loving, evil must be severely punished. And that is what we find in the concept of the cross: an act of severe love but also an act of severe punishment. So you cannot take omnibenevolence outside the context of God's justice.

Third, in wrapping all these attributes together, we are left with one final question, "Could God have created a universe without free-will?" I would say it depends on what you mean. If you mean to say, "Could God create a universe without free-will but contain moral properties?" I would say no. But if you meant, "Could God simply have created an amoral universe without free-will?" I don't see why not.

In concluding this response, I would like to say one more thing. The Problem of Evil seems to be a problem derived from either a misrepresentation of the omni-attributes and the concept of good and evil or it is derived from the seemingly unfair idea that human do bad things. However, as the above testifies, I do not believe that either give us a good reason to deny that the OOO God exists, let alone attempt to call it a logical contradiction.

A Friend's Remark....

Sometimes I find my own desire to save memorable comments a mere fancy of selfish pride. However, I do mean to keep those posts or, in this case, a facebook dialogue that has illustrated a long lost point. Do enjoy.

Me:

Today I was listening to a podcast by Dr. Willian Craig. He made an interesting point in illustrating God's omnipotence. He said, "All things are possible through Christ who strengthens us. I'm not saying that door's will always open in your life. Sometimes, through God, you need to break them down." Perhaps this is common knowledge, but it struck me in a very different way than what I normally hear. Any thoughts?

Yurchn Tlern :

The Israelites had to walk around Jericho 7 times, and I'm betting that was a lot harder and sounded a lot crazier than spending the time just breaking the door down. (Though the idea is the same as a closed door.) I think the church's version of "normal thinking" includes a lot of fear of our passions running away with us, and I think passionately pursuing a closed door falls into that category.
Is it always wise to break the door down? I can't say, but I know that God loves to break "normal thinking", and maybe by giving up when a certain door closes we give up an opportunity for God to show himself strong through our weakness. With that, I'm convinced that sometimes we can miss out on something wonderful because we waited for it to get up and walk over to us. What do you think?

Me:

I think you hit it on the head. In contrast to the normality of church teaching, we find that the God of the Old Testament was quite provocative towards action. For some reason or another, I think action tends to be subverted under the guise of pious contentment. Whereas, I would contend that the term contentment is action-oriented towards finding the fullness of what you already possess.

However, I suppose what made me really start thinking was the notion that what we presume to be closed doors are open insofar as we open them in Christ. When we think of the verses such as, "You have not because you ask not" and "We can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," I feel that we assume that if we see the door open then we are free to go through and if a door is closed that assumes we are not to go through. Instead, we should be asking, in light of Christ, ought that door be open or ought that door be closed. And if that door is open in contrast to Christ or closed in contrast to Christ, it is in those moments we ask for what we do not have and strive for what we cannot do.

Ever After...

 

          I just finished watching Ever After and I think fairy tales have always had it right when it mocks a vain woman. No man can long endure a woman who basks in his presence, worships the grounds he walks, or be enraptured by every comment he utters. What a true man will say, if you give him the time to be an honest man, is he looks for a woman who will do quite the opposite. He looks for a woman who will confound his presence, unsettle his grounds, and shatters the golden calves of his mind like spangles in the sky. What a man looks for is not a woman who is content with a simple shrine, but a woman who sees the vast cosmos as a wonderland of a unimaginable Temple.

 

 

Perelandra

"My fear was now of another kind. I felt sure that the creature was what we call "good," but I wasn't sure whether I liked "goodness" so much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it also is dreadful? How if food ...itself turns out to be the very thing you can't eat, and home the very place you can't live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable? Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played." - Perelandra, C.S. Lewis

What I really love about this quote is how it expresses the dichotomy of the Christian faith. Despite being a Sci-Fi book, C.S. Lewis has managed to "get on with it" and highlight a very real and very sensible notion - that our God is composed of both love, of which we all find comfort, and holiness, of which we all find uncomfortable.

Oh Why, Oh Why?

In the 2012 Summer, I decided to take an Argumentative Writing coure. My assignment was to compose a Rogerian style essay about a controversial topic while incorporating elements from Shakespeare's Othello. It was perhaps the most difficult essay I had ever attempted. And I really do mean attempted because I didn't finish it. At two in the morning, I finished what I was willing to turn in: a pleading for a better grade than a zero. I never wrote the rogerian essay. Instead, I wrote a little essay about my life and what went wrong entitle Oh Why, Oh Why? I hope you enjoy the first part.

----------



     Long ago, but not too long ago, if you happened to be walking down an old quiet street near a catholic hospital, you might have spied a child being born. It wasn't unusual for children to be born at a hospital, for most children are hardly born anywhere else, neither was it unusual for hospitals to have fraternity wards where babies are placed in incubators. But what would have been unusual was if you were were walking down an old quite street near a catholic hospital on this particular night. It was a Wednesday night, a work night, with no time to spare for late night excursions to local hopstitals. Instead, you might have been with friends or family members celebrating the fall of another great empire. With glasses filled high, you should have been celebrating as all Americans do. This was the year 1991, the fall of the Soviet Union, the great clamour after the wintry wars, the year a child was born in a catholic hospital.

     For whatever happened to that child, from there to now, will not be told in every detail and in every way - heaven knows it would take almost twenty-two years. But what will be told is how unusual his life was, and how it became tangled, and perplexed, and every other sort of unpleasantness you could muster to the front of your imagination. For it began early one morning during his 5th grade year.

     "Logan!... No reply... "Logan!" ... No reply... "Logan!" ... still no reply. His mother came in slamming open the door and ripping the binds nearly off their hinges. For an obscure reason, as we may all know the nasty habit of an unwilling spirit near a fragile device, the clock at the bed-side had malfunctioned during the night. The alarm didn't sound and he was late for school.
     In shorter time than it takes an angry mother to count to three, Logan was sitting at the breakfast table looking like a tornado through the prairie land. But he was eathing without another worry. Surely the storm was at it's eye. Was there no bus-stop to which he would, shortly, be frantically running? Was there not a bus drive who brought doughnuts every Wednesday or a teacher at the other end of the transit system by which little people were kept to tight schedules and packed classrooms? Nay, the only transit system was his sppon and his bowl of cereal. And if you ask me, they were quite efficient.

     By breakfast's end, Logan should have been sitting with is classmates preparing to share his dreams of becoming something when he became an adult. His previous classmates wanted to be lawyers and doctors and teachers and firefighters and policement and everything to do with great services for the common good. But not Logan. Logan wasn't at school today, nor any other day that year, because in his fifth grade year his mother began teaching at home.

     In the 6th grade year, opening his father's chemistry book, he didn't want to be a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher or a firefighter or a policeman or anytihgn to do with great services for the commond good. Logan wanted to be a physicist or a chemist. And what naturally attraced his attention wasn't the beginning of his book, where the safe metals and metloids could be found, it was the back where chapters started with Nuclear. The more complex they were, the more he wanted to learn. The more dangerous they were, the more he wanted to master. Perahps, it was best he wasn't at a school with packed classrooms and tight schedules. Perhaps, a slip of a wrist or a push of a schedule would send more than enough wind to rattle a paper's edge - and all the doughnuts would be burnt as well. For whatever purpose he was not at school, he was learning at home in a most unusual way.

     But promise is a promise and, when I promise not to tell every detail, I mean to keep it. There was a long span between his 6th grade year and his college summer class where he expanded his mind and learned how the world didn't work. He learned commerce and how to have business talks with representatives of multi-million dollar companies - of course, between highschool exams. He traveled the United States and learned about the Civil War by the sites he walked. But the comings and goings of adventure between his elementary and college education is succumbed with too much detail. It was unusual, yes, but his college summer class is where his life ceased to be unusual and became tangled, and perplexed, and ever other sort of unpleasantness you could muster to the front of your imagination. His summer college class was fraught with essays.

     He was not longer awaken with spontaneous explosions from his door and his eye's seared by he sudden burst of light. No one was yelling his name or counting to three - no one was awake. Instead, a small device near his bed-side miraculously began to work. For, miraculously, was the only way to describe the working of that clock. The sound was that static screech between channels. It was broken without hope. But every morning at 5:30am, between Monday and Thursday, Logan slumped out of bed and crawled to the shower. Not even tornadoes dance at this time.

     The shower brought no comfort. Slouching the corner, face to the wall, he would fancy catching the lasts bits of sleep or preparing for the upcoming class. On his desk, in his room, he knew the essay wasn't complete. He knew any mad attempt to finish the last lines would end in failure, he knew his time was up. His life had ceased being unusual and became tangled, and perplexed, and every other srot of unpleasantness you could muster to the front of your imagination at 6:30am. But this is the story of a child born in an old catholic hopsital, on a Wednesday night, the year a great empire fell.

     As a student, I know what's it's like when you see another essay deadline. You don't see completion, you don't see victory. You see something dark, and cold, and long nights, and early mornings, and an endless spiral to insanity. In short, it is universally agreed by the student body that essays are the bane to good health. But this insignificant body of "soon-to-be's" aren't the only ones. They are not alone against college professors. There are legions of psychologists and neuroscientists who agree that sleep deprivation, the leading side-effect to essays, alter emotional balances, increase a human's probability of being violent (emtionally and, potentially, physically), reduce cognitive reflexes, and reduces overall retention.



(To be continued...)

Simple Sadness ~ Why Readers Appreciate a Simply Sad Tale

      I've always wanted to write a story about a young woman who had a late night dinner with Christ. A simple tale about child love and adult regret. But time has impaired me, so I intend to give it away as an example to a greater truth. Who knows, one day another may finish it for me.

       The tale goes like this. A long time ago when America was younger, a time as C.S. Lewis described as having the most mouth watering candy around. A time where everything was a bit more beautiful because everything was a bit more central. A time Prayer was still in school and the farm-houses were still found in the rolling grasslands, but still a time not entirely worth describing because it would leave the reader too depressed to finish the story.

       In this most common setting we find an even more common situation - a most unpleasant woman. She wore dresses that were too small and shoes that were too big. Her skin was too pale, even for distress, and her eyes wore a teary shroud. But everyone knew her for her golden hair. This was perhaps the only bright and most decent thing about her.

      She would spend her days having tea with her self and spend nights cutting the memories from her arms. She loved her parents, and her love was killing her.

       The night came where she slipped a note beneath her aunt's and uncle's door, swept down the stairs, out across the lawn, to sit at a table and wish the moon and the stars farewell. Smiling to herself, she knew she would seem them again. The table was prepped, the knife glinted in her hand. But death has a way to give a last word.

      She was startled by the sound of crunching leaves. And before I describe anything more, I must say the conversation that passed between them is the only privacy allowed to my story. However, there is something I would like to share. Just before I drew the curtains on this shadowy tale, something was said. Something simple.

      He saw here wrists. Each furrow strummed to the harmony of sorrow and pain. Each rivet burrowed to the cries of the heart.

       "I just want it to stop." her eyes beginning to swell, " just for it to stop."

       And the man reached forward, laying out both of his arms, "So do I." She saw the holes and began to cry."

      Writing is a delicate matter. If you stress sadness, you only stress the readers. The truth is sad enough, there's no reason to tell anyone why it's sad.