The Bible does acknowledge the problem of the selectivity of miracles in Luke 4:23-27.
Religious faith is a virtue only in that it constitutes trust and trustworthiness, the former of which is virtuous only if there is Someone worth trusting. So it’s no wonder atheists question its virtue.
Don’t extort, don’t slander: Easy. Be content with your wages: A little harder. Redistribute your wealth: Um, really? Yet John the Baptist appears to assign similar moral value to all of them.
My aversion to academic writing under deadlines is what doomed any thought of me becoming an academic myself, but a love for academic reading could make this book the first in a long run tomes that pass through my house by way of my friends-of-Penn-State library card.
A few critical notes as I dive back in to Matthew McCormick’s book:
- Concision carries rhetorical power. And McCormick is concise.
- I agree that miracles don’t happen nearly as often as I wish they would or think they should. But that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. How do I account for some of the miracles my friend Marshall describes (i.e., the rain stopping, the word of knowledge for the divorcée, and the healed tumor)? How do I explain the healing ministry of Heidi Baker?
Wife and I share a concern that wherever this doubt and I end up, that I don’t end up lacking in the strength and security that I’ve given her and the kids with my faith in Jesus.
Is it not possible that the strength and security I’ve given comes not from being a conduit for Jesus but rather from my having certainty about my purpose and mission, a surety of a unifying guide, a lodestar principle? If I have a lodestar principle and mission I can settle on other than Jesus—what am I writing?!?—perhaps I can still lend strength to my family even if I end up a doubting Thomas.
friend:
I just wanted to let you know that my thoughts have been with you after hearing about your sleepless night. I think I understand the sort of turmoil you are in; I’ve been deep in it for a while!
I would be delighted to talk more…and/or to let ideas and feelings percolate as needed.
self:
Thank you for your sympathy. You and your husband are good people.
That it wasn’t until thirty-three years old for this devout Christian to experience his first pangs of doubt probably accounts for why it was so intense. It was a doubly novel experience for me: my first doubts and my first involuntarily sleepless night. A doozy I don’t hope to relive.
But now that I’ve slept some and my thoughts have settled, one could say in summary that not much has changed: I am simply less sure of all my Christian beliefs. Still, it’s strange to pray to a god you’re less sure exists. His hiddenness used to be a source of knowing laughter in prayer. Now it’s a bit more serious than that.
Anyway, I currently plan to pause on the McCormick volume until Sunday or so. We’ll see what happens as I continue reading. You still plan to finish, yes? In the apparent absence of a volume directly responding to it, I still plan to read this Licona volume from 2010 as its companion. I have requested a copy from Schlow via interlibrary loan.
One thought I don’t want to forget jotting down: McCormick speaks of an amazingly powerful, biologically seated Urge in people that’s at the genesis of all religions. I say if the we have the Urge, whether it’s God-given, biologically endowed, or both, why not find its best outlet instead of trying to stuff it?
Another thought: Historically, I have a very low tolerance for being unsettled: I’m the guy who unpacks all his belongings into the hotel dresser drawers for a two-night stay just for a sense of settledness. So I don’t plan to stay here long. Hopefully our exploring this together will help you, too, to leave this turmoil and reach solid ground—whether that’s at the mouth of an miraculously vacant tomb or not.
Finally, let me reciprocate: Send me thoughts, ideas, feelings whenever you wish at whatever pace you wish. I have a deep love for deliberation and collaboration as a means of truth-getting.
When I restart my reading of Atheism and the Case Against Christ, I plan to actively take critical notes along the way. To fight back, as it were.
I should either discontinue fasting on days when I have choral society rehearsal or eat a light dinner despite my hunger. I arrive at rehearsal ready to sing and then peter out after twenty minutes.
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).
The exclusivist in me says that sanctification isn’t possible without an specific faith in Jesus. The inclusivist disagrees. Neither views this verse as particularly informative to his case, in part because it would have to be conclusively argued that “seeing the Lord” is coterminous with having eternal life. Nevertheless, I insist we list all these Scriptures because they have potential to inform or nuance the conclusion.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39).
Again, we’re not talking about whether eternal life is possible for someone who can’t for some reason put their faith explicitly in the real Jesus. It has to do with backsliding. Backsliders (“those who shrink back”) backslide to destruction. For some reason the author of Hebrews mentions it a lot.
I enjoyed getting to know Daniel on our ride to GAOS and dinner at Passage to India. He affirmed my position in life, that is, being uncomfortably comfortable in my suburban life and waiting for a specific call from God to go and do something specific. But he also spurred me to lead with the Gospel. Don’t try to do good things in hopes they bring you an audience for the Gospel. Bring the Gospel and do good things. At the same time.
What does Mark 4:24-25 mean?
Carla and I failed to find Abel Gance’s Napoléon for gratis streaming online, so we talked on the loveseat about same-sex marriage, our church, the knowledge of good and evil and whether, and Psalm 91. We enjoy one another’s company and thoughts and genuinely admire one another. (Carla cleaned up dried sewage from our basement floor this afternoon.) As I sat down the kitchen table to close the day with a journal entry, we had the following nigh-Familypants-worthy exchange:
Carla: I like Josh Ambrose. Scott: He’s always playing the educated agnostic. Carla: I like that. Scott: That’s because you’re an educated agnostic.
Carla and I are both very happy today.
We’re in the groove, so to speak. I remained calm and focused the entire day at work. She enjoyed a lunch date at Panera with Éa during which she heard several other OCC moms complaining that they’re lonely and without close friends, which caused her to reflect that she is full of friends. I enjoyed a brisk walk in polar temperatures to and from lunch at Ethan’s house for forty-five minutes of conversation with the single friend of mine who is closest in outlook and makeup to me. Éa and I enjoyed me dancing with her in my arms during “25 or 6 to 4” and “Tusk.” Carla volunteered to clean up the sewage solids from the basement floor tomorrow morning.
About the worst thing you can say about today is that we finished up the coffee banana chocolate chip scones.
I could go on and on. O God, that we be very grateful.
Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
— Titus 3:1-8
Methinks we cannot be qualified for salvation by our works, but we can be disqualified.
I’m tired. I didn’t enjoy learning Bach’s St. John Passion this evening at Choral Society rehearsal. I’ve been working hard on DiamondBack’s migration to Salesforce. I carry a slight dread of singing lessons. Why?
In brief, je me suis surmené. And I think my heart, having been dragged along for years now in my mind’s crusade for productivity, order, self-control, and a final end to absent-mindedness, is flagging. Or perhaps it has been flagging a long while before this, but I hadn’t enough self-awareness to notice.
God, Your word to me about how to handle the human heart from Scripture is, I think, another monument along this now 16-month-long, post-Fiddler journey into letting my heart come alive. Thank You. And please keep going.
Carla: He looks like the beggar at the Beautiful Gate.
Éa: Who?
Scott: One of the people Jesus healed. One of many.
Éa: Killed?
Scott: HEALED.
Carla: And THAT. is why I don’t want our children to read Bible stories yet.
We played a good bit of a modified version of the game above today in the Stilson house. But goshdarn if Sullivan couldn’t manage to let previous answers shape his subsequent questions.
Anyway, two important things today:
- I had my first singing lesson with Norman Spivey today.
- Ethan and I got together for the first of what I think will be a long, mutually beneficial series of weekly lunches.
In some sense, both of the above are a return to the past. But they’re different: I’m mature enough now to actually avoid melting down in a singing lesson even though Norman and I are working on very basic stuff like “vocal hygiene.” And Ethan and I are less naive about God and life.
Perhaps the retributive justice by proxy understanding that I’ve inherited is only true for people who need it to be true. Some people, like Carla’s cousin Diana, are looking for their sins to be “paid for” in a karmic sense. Others, like the ancient Hebrews, sought a scapegoat upon whom they could lay their sin.
I don’t sense either of these needs myself. Not that I’m without sin. Rather, I see You, God, as perfectly able to forgive without having to make someone pay first. That’s what makes it hard for me to “understand the Atonement” as I’ve been saying recently. And it’s still hard for me to suss out what parts of the “traditional” view of the Atonement are merely my upbringing and what is Scripture.
My primary question is this: if penal substitution and guilt reassignment was merely an optional accessory to the Atonement, what (does the Bible say) was Jesus Himself trying to accomplish that could only be accomplished by being executed?
Perhaps forgiveness was not Your primary goal in Jesus’ execution?
The above leaf dates from thirteen years ago. Kris sent it to me yesterday. A lot in me has changed since then. And a lot sure hasn’t. :)
Speaking of things changing in me, I relapsed into not trusting Carla to by my ally today as the weekend time she was spending on her first council meeting stretched into its third or fourth hour this morning. DON’T DO THAT.
On another note, one of the several reasons I’d like to stick hard to my bedtimes is that I want to put a tad more thought into this journaling. I won’t be leaving much for posterity if I rush through this.
Nevertheless, it’s 10:36pm, and I need to get to bed.
“Cease and know that I am God.”
— Psalm 46:10
Today what was supposed to be a prayerful walk through Mom’s neighborhood ended up a reestablish who I am, who I’d like to be, and how to go from point A to point B: Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, yet know that God will judge you in the end. Don’t let what you’re not doing distract you from you are doing. (I’m especially prone to be guilty of that last one when the what-I’m-not-doing is the kids. I seem to forget that the best way to get back to the kids is to concentrate fully on what I’m doing.) Whatever you do, do it heartily.
I feel a certain loneliness today, a longing for fellowship. It’s probably because Carla is sick and spent most of the day in bed, although it feels like I’ve been missing something for a while now, a need for a best friend with whom I share not only interests, proximity, and mutual affection, but also approach to God, approach to self-conduct, and way of thinking. No friend of mine thinks like I do. Ethan is the closest I can think of. Perhaps I need to drop him a line.
Nonetheless, Carla and I did finally finish Greed (1924) this evening together. It was an excellent film that prompted me to pray, “Lord, please keep us from being deceived by money.”
Jordan and Stephen divulged to me on our way up to Philipsburg for DiamondBack Christmas party day that playing vertical music for Keystone was the worst experience in their worship-playing careers. The motif of their report was that the people there were “mean.”
As Carla said upon my report of that revelation later this evening, “It’s good when wolves are wolves.”