Wearing the right shirt
Saturday, April 26, 2008 – 4:43 pmI should have worn the shirt that says “responsible” today instead of the shirt that says “flake.”
Questions
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 – 1:38 amExcluding the perfect or ideal world, is the following wrong:
Genocide?
War?
Torture?
Killing of civilians during armed conflicts?
Procrastinating again…
Sunday, April 6, 2008 – 6:46 pmI wrote a letter to Mat Jones a while ago, here it is:
Mat, you have said before that you do not think that man has any intrinsic value and that humans can only find their value in Christ. I am writing to you to try and persuade you otherwise. You are more than welcome to criticize and critique this letter. This work will not cover all the small details and you are welcome to bring up different points. I want to focus on one small thing, what are the implications if man has no intrinsic value?
I think your basic view is based off of verses such as Jeremiah 17:9 (The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it? RSV), Romans 3:10-11 (None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. ESV), and Romans 7:18 (For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. NASB). It seems clear in just these three verses that the depravity of man is very great. It is not a matter of choosing evil, because of Adam’s sin every human is born evil. So, hypothetically speaking, even if a son of Adam managed to never sin, he would still be responsible for his inherent sin nature. Your view states that when Christ saves someone they then are given value because the dead man is washed away in the blood of Christ. You might even say what value does a dead man have?
However, my view states that humans have value because we were created in God’s image. God imparted some of his essence into us when he made us (this is not to say that we are God, however). But (and this is a huge “but”), when humanity fell through Adam, we became exceedingly wicked. So I will join C. S. Lewis in saying,
[If] you come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve… that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.
It seems that Lewis is saying (and I agree with him), that we find pride and value in being made in the accordance of the image of God, but we should be shamed and humiliated by our and our father’s sins.
Now on to the implications; what happens if man has no intrinsic value? I have several related questions. If humanity has no value apart from Christ: Why did God decide to save us rather than destroy us? What is the difference between an unsaved person being alive and their being dead? Why are things that are typically considered morally depraved among Christians such as abortion wrong? This is just to start us off.
You would probably respond to the first question by stating that that is the whole nature of God’s grace and mercy. Under your view, it might seem that God is even more gracious and merciful if he extends that grace and mercy to those who have no value whatsoever. As opposed to the thought that God might be obligated to save humanity if they had value.
This seems acceptable to me at first until I look further. It seems that if God is just, he would not have let humanity live for as long as they have without destroying them. I know that this is, to a certain degree, begging the question, but bear with me for a moment. Why would God love humanity enough to try and save them if they are completely corrupted and without any value. In other words, how can God love an evil? How can God show mercy to an unpardoned evil? Why should God give us grace?
The next two questions that I asked are inextricably related. If humanity has no value, what is the difference between the living and the dead. In some ways it seems as if everyone being dead is of more value that everyone being alive because there would be less evil in the world. Another way to address the issues is to ask why is murder wrong? I understand murder to be wrong, not just because God says so, but because I am stealing a valuable life. Murder is wrong because we are killing those who bear the image of God. If humanity does not have any value then things such as abortion, murder, and maybe even rape become just another fact of existence rather than morally reprehensible. In fact, if we and all of our actions a re completely corrupt at all times, then what is the moral difference between my washing my hair and my killing someone. It seems ridiculous to say that there is only a moral difference once we are saved.
I think this is where the line blurs between our topics; I do not know if we are just talking about the worth of man anymore. It might also be that we are talking about our fundamental understanding of the doctrine of total depravity. You seem to think that man can never do any good whatsoever apart from Christ. All of man’s actions are evil and counter to what God wants (which leads for an awkward situations for a hard determinist). It is not that man will not do good, it is that man cannot do good because goodness is counter to his very essence, i.e. his very nature.
However, I disagree with this. I think that man is corrupt by his very nature, but he can do some good. But all of his actions are tainted by his sin nature. That is to say, Man may do a good action but is never a wholly good action.
Take this for example: A little child is riding his bike on the sidewalk and crashes on the street into the path of an oncoming bus. A man who is taking a walk runs out into the street, throws the child to safety of the sidewalk, and is subsequently killed by the bus that hits him. I do not think that you can offer up any rational explanation for why the man’s actions were completely and utterly evil because saving children from horrible deaths is honorable and good. Sacrificing oneself for others is honorable and good (even Jesus did this many times). It seems the best we can do is say that the action is only tainted by his sin nature. The saving of the child may have been motivated by things that are not altogether good (glory, pride, and such), but this does not take away from the fact that this was a good action.
Let me offer up this to you, for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. It seems that God saving us is not just him extending his grace and mercy to us, but an act of love as well. Let me ask this one more time, can God love an evil? If there is not good part of us, nothing worth saving, why would God save us? God was in no way obligated to save us, he saved us because we are worth saving. Regardless of Calvinism and Arminianism, I hope to convince you that man does indeed have some value.
Clive Staples Lewis. Prince Caspian. New York: HarperCollins, 1979.
Man’s best friend
Monday, March 17, 2008 – 8:36 amI apologize, but I just had to post this:
Dog is truly a man’s best friend. If you don’t believe it, just try this experiment:
Put your dog and your wife (in my case, this is you, Sarah) in the trunk of the car for an hour.
When you open the trunk, which one is really happy to see you?
:S
Monday, March 3, 2008 – 7:53 amHave you ever noticed how the smiley face is deformed?
:)
His eyes are too close to his mouth, but we seem to have a similar problem when we try this:
: )
Now his eyes are too far from his mouth. What this smiley needs is a nose, poor little blighter.
New Pet Peeve
Thursday, January 31, 2008 – 9:45 pmWhy do people hit the snooze on the alarm?
Why not set your alarm for half an hour later than you planned in order to get more restful sleep and save yourself from waking up ten times?
I am glad that is off my chest…
You
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 – 4:57 pmEvery color goes where you do.
You are as captivating as the moon and stars.
Your beauty warms me like the sun.
Every color…
Musings on infinity
Wednesday, December 5, 2007 – 4:08 pmSuppose there is a library that contains an infinite number of books. Next, suppose that there are an infinite number of blue books, and there are an infinite number of red books in this library. Furthermore, suppose that one of the blue books contains an infinite number of pages. If one was to read the blue book with the infinite number of pages, he would have read the same amount of information as if he had read every book in library. Second, if one was to remove all of the red books in the library, the library would still contain the same number of books as it started with.
If this problem is applied to a theoretical, infinitely long universe, the same result would ensue. Suppose our theoretical universe stretches back for an infinite amount of time. If four hours were to pass in the theoretical universe, the universe would still have the same amount of hours that have passed before the four hours were added to it. If one were to build a time machine and travel 1,000 years back in time, the traveler would arrive in the same time he had started. This is because to subtract 1,000 years from an infinite amount of time still leaves one with an infinite amount of time. I think that this second thought problem shows that there cannot be an eternal universe.
Cold Winter
Sunday, November 18, 2007 – 10:58 amA new leaf amongst the dead,
Does this one have a hope or will it perish with the Cold Winter air?
Is it the winter that holds back the spring
With its perpetual death?
Does Life refuse to burst forth, break Cold Winter’s frozen grip?
Alas, I know not but Cold Winter’s naught.
Life exists, it must exist… does it?
Pass Them By
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 – 12:01 amUpon the hearth the fire is red
Beneath the roof there is a bed
But not yet weary are our feet
Still around the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.
Tree and flower and leaf and grass
Let them pass! Let them pass!
Hill and water under sky
Pass them by! Pass them by!
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the
Sun Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,
Let them go! Let them go!
Sand and stone and pool and dell,
Fare you well! Fare you well!
Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight
Then world behind and home ahead
Well wander back to home and bed
Mist and twilight, cloud and shade
Away shall fade! Away shall fade!
Fire and lamp and meat and bread,
And then to bed! And then to bed!
-Tolkien