It Has Been Awhile.

Well here I am. I realize that it has been almost two years or it might actually be over two years now that I think about it. But, I am back. I am not sure what that actually means. I did go to the Saturday night group that kind of started this whole thing. It was good. We watched a short video clip from Rob Bell about how despite whatever shame we feel or whatever we have done wrong that God will not stop loving us.

While I enjoyed the time with the group and I, as usual, wished the conversation could have gone on for two hours. The conversation was excellent and the ideas bouncing of off each other I just love that kind of thing. It doesn't matter to me if I agree or disagree but that I was able to hear a different viewpoint and that kind of thing always get me going.

So I just wanted to step into the blog and mention that I really enjoyed myself this evening and I hope I can keep going to the group and continue to enjoy myself as I did before. I am glad they are still doing it. It felt good and it felt correct for me to be there. I know that this process is baby steps for me and that the new Broadway building is a bit of a mixed bag for some people but for me it is actually a place where I feel comfortable and it is a place that I can make new memories in. Not a place that has the very large ghosts of old relationships hanging like a shroud over everything around me when I go into the building.

It is nice when I go there because I am just a customer there. A few of the barista's know me there by name and I like that. But I like that because they know me as Lance the guy that like Hairbender and sometimes will order a pour over. Who comes in on Mondays and drinks coffee and has a scone and looks for a job. It is a comfortable place for me and I am not tied up with memories that bring me pain. I like that about it. I hope it lasts a long time and I hope that I continue to feel comfortable there.

Thoughts!!

I read this on another blog that I read in the comments section. It was written by a fellow named Warren.

"once we have figured out that (some kind of) God must exist, and put aside what C. S. Lewis called "boys' philosophies" (materialism, atheism, etc), then we are led to the next stage of enquiry: namely, has this God revealed himself to us? Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism all claim divine revelation (I would not include Buddhism on this list) - are any of them right? All of them? Some of them? None of them? And how would we decide that a genuine divine revelation has occurred? What criteria could we possibly use for that?"

I found this really fascinating because it puts into words what it is that I have been thinking and what I find myself wrestling with on a regular basis. Many philosophers and thinkers feel that without Divine inspiration philosophy would have ground to a halt rather then move forward into Theology.

So for me this is the interesting point. While the majority of Christians will argue that only their God exists. The Jews, Muslims, and Hindus will argue the exact same thing. In the quote above the author does not put Buddhism on this list. I am not so sure I would think that the original Buddha may himself have experienced Divine revelation but chose to (freely chose) express that in a different way then the other religions.

So, the first question, if all of these separate religions claim Divine inspiration then which one is right? The traditional Christian will argue that this is a slippery slope to begin with. If I even acknowledge the possible origins of these other religions to have begun with Divine inspiration then I have begun to doubt the very origins of the Christian faith. But, I would argue that if I do not ask these questions I am not being honest with myself and am not using the brain that God gave me.

If I claim that God is not powerful or big enough to survive my questions then why believe in him in the first place. In fact, I would argue that this need to think of God as exclusive to my particular place of origin is a result of us being human. Perhaps, God knows this and chose to show himself in such a way that his message would be the most effective for the differing peoples that he was revealing himself to.

The, other question, how could I decide that a genuine revelation had occurred? That to me is the key, because this is exactly what people are saying and doing when they declare other religions off limits. To me, when one looks back at the origins of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity it is obvious that they are coming out of the same beginnings. The changes begin with the birth of Jesus and when man got involved. But, despite my feelings about the origins of these religions. I am hesitant to declare these three the ones and only. The biggest reason being that since I am not Divine (in any way) how in the world am I qualified to make this claim.

I would further argue that it would go against the teachings of God to automatically declare these other religions worthless. I think I need to worry more about my faith and how I live my personal life when it comes to honoring others and just showing them love. It will not be up to me to decide who is right or wrong. And, if I insist on behaving like I it is up to me then I may be in for a real surprise. But, I don't know and for me that is the most freeing thing. I do not know and I am not supposed to know.

It is freeing for me to separate my faith from my origins, separate it from my politics, and finally separate it from my failings as a human and to believe that God is big enough to handle all of that.

We have Free WIll! We have Free Will?

I read a blog called One Cosmos and I find it very interesting. I do not agree with all that he writes in fact I do not agree with probably half of what he writes. But, he raised an interesting point in his writing today.

"The problem isn't that man is unfree, assuming that he is not living in literal slavery or attending a politically correct university. Rather, the problem is that man's freedom is not absolute but finite; it is constrained, for example, by death. As is the case with truth, our freedom is inexplicable in the absence of an absolute freedom that we can never possess, but which we can know about.

The question is -- and this is a question God must "ask himself" -- how can I overcome man's "no" without denying him the precious gift of freedom that I have granted him? You could say -- so to speak, of course -- that this is the question God must have pondered before coming up with the idea of the Incarnation."

I found the above paragraph very interesting because I am not sure that we have free will. I think we think we have free will and in some cases we may believe that we have free will or feel that we know we have free will. But, I wonder does that really matter one way or the other if we have Free Will or not? We are going to live our lives. We are going to get up each morning, or afternoon, depending upon your lifestyle, and go about our day. Then at the end of our lives we die. It is like Bob mentions above. Our Free Will is finite because we ultimately are all going to die. So I wonder then does the mind set that death is inevitable free us up to just live.

Or does that drive us to move towards some level of belief system so that we can try to fight against the inevitably of death. So, that we can feel that as long as we are a believer we have eternal life. So, then death is not to be feared because we have eternal life to look forward to.

I submit that we will always have eternal life to look forward to. If you are a believer either we die and go to Heaven or if you are not a believer we die and go to Hell but it seems to me that either way we have eternal life. Or, we die and that is it there is nothing left. We are worm food! If we then die and are worm food then truly death does not matter because we have no idea that we are worm food because we are just that worm food. Then there is no existence for us beyond death. So death does not matter one way or the other, death is not to be feared.

DEATH JUST IS! It is not good or bad it is not right or wrong it just exists it sits there waiting for us to arrive. So, chew on that for awhile.

Divine Foreknowledge/Freewill

I have just been reading Boethius's CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY and if you are at all into philosophy I highly recommend it. But on to the issue at hand. Do we in fact have free will? The deeper question is this one if God knows all that we do and all decisions we make is that truly free will. Boethius argues that we do have free will. He says that God resides outside of time and that for God he sees all possible choices we might make. The thought being that since God is outside of time there is no past or present or future. That for God all these happen at the same time. I would argue that his defense is flawed in that I believe that if we feel that God's knowledge is divine and that he can not make a mistake. Well then if God were to see us do something and then we do something else it brings into question the divinity of God or whether or not he can make a mistake. I think that is the flaw in Boethius's reasoning. I am not sure if I feel one way or the other on this issue. I lean toward the no freewill side of the argument but I feel that while Boethius's defense of it makes some sense. I feel that he makes that one fatal flaw. Thoughts?

Food For Thought?

I have been reading Peter Abelard's Ethical Writings : Ethics and Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian So far this has been a very interesting book and I wanted to address some points he made and see what people thought about them. Abelard first a little background was born in 1079 at Brittany and chose to pursue logic and philosophy as areas of study. In 1113 he appeared in Paris and began to study theology. He ultimatly became a monk and a lecturer and has left behind an impressive number of philosophical and theological writings. Abelard writes

Fore he who says, "Do not pursue your lusts, and turn away from your will," commanded us not to satisfy our lusts, but not to do without them altogether. For satisfying them is wicked, but going without them is impossible in our feeble state. And so it isn't the lusting after a woman but the consenting to the lust that is the sin. It isn't the will to have sex with her that is damnable but the will's consent.

I find this makes for an interesting viewpoint it appears that Abelard is saying that since we are fallen and weak and we can not control our thoughts that lusting isn't a sin. So in effect thinking anything isn't a sin it is just taking action on those thoughts that is the sin. Any thought?

UPDATE

So after discussions with my philosophy instructor my understanding of what Abelard is trying to say has changed. It seems that Abelard is saying that the sin comes in consenting to the thought within the mind. So the action of doing the sin doesn't change the impact one way or the other but when you first think the thought and then you consent to doing it you have sinned whether or not the action takes place. By just consenting to the idea then the sin has taken place.