Lord, there is more to do today than I can possibly accomplish. I don’t believe that You spun the Earth too fast, so grant me the grace to do only those things You expect of me so that, when the day is over, I will know that I got everything done.
What do we call Jesus’ mother?
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. — Isaiah 7:14 [emphasis mine]
And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. – Luke 1:41-42 [emphasis mine]
And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. – Luke 1:46-48 [emphasis mine]
When Protestants refer to Jesus’ mother they call her by her name, Mary. That makes sense. It was, after all, her name. But people are sometimes put off when they hear Catholics refer to her as “the Blessed Virgin Mary.” I don’t think it is wrong either way, but I do want the show that the Catholic appellation is at least consistent with Scripture.
Isaiah prophesied that “a” virgin would conceive. Not “some” or “many” virgins. So when the fulfillment of the prophecy occurred, Mary was “the” virgin whom he foretold. So it would be completely scriptural to call her “the virgin.”
The Holy Spirit, speaking through Elisabeth and Mary said that all future generations would call her “blessed.” I think that includes us. So it is scriptural to call her the “blessed virgin.” And it is common in the English language, when referring to a person of title, to attach an appellation to the title. “His Majesty, King George the First.” “The President of the United States, George W. Bush.” “The Blessed Virgin, Mary.”
Oops! Did I just use a Protestant Bible to explain a Catholic tradition? Yes, I did. Does that mean that Protestants are wrong and Catholics are right? No, it certainly does not. Both are correct. So during this Christmas season (we call it Advent because we await His appearance) we should stop and consider how much she was favored by God and at the very least ponder in our own hearts how such a miracle could be so.
Bless you all.
Filed under Apologetics, Christianity
An observation on “Christmassy” music
We are bombarded by the usual overabundance of “Christmas” music. I noted some time ago that many songs had nothing to do with our Christian holiday. I have since created a classification system for the music of the season.
See if this makes sense:
Class I: Songs about Jesus or specific Christian themes.
- Silent Night
- Away In A Manger
- Joy to the World
- O Little Town of Bethlehem
Class II: Songs about the season but not specifically Christian (although they may use the word “Christmas” in them).
- It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
- Deck The Halls
- Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
- The Christmas Song
(Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
Class III: Winter and snow songs. (Why don’t we sing these in February when it’s really winter? Are these considered Christmas songs in Australia?)
- Sleigh Ride
- Frosty The Snowman
- Jingle Bells
I hope I haven’t ruined Christmas for you. Now, every time you hear a song, you’ll be thinking “Is that a class I or II song?” Actually, it doesn’t matter. If we only hear “Frosty” during Christmas at least we only have to put up with it for a month or so.
“And though it’s been said many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you.”
Filed under Christianity, Music
Often seen at football games
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 King James Version (KJV)
Can the Gospel be reduced to one verse? In one sense it can. John 3:16 cuts to the very core of God’s plan of salvation: His great love for the world, His great sacrifice freely offered, and our response to that call.
On the other hand, Jesus expounds a Gospel that encompasses so much more than that. Although this verse might be sufficient to achieve salvation alone, it can not even begin to inform a Christian life.
What is the answer? Very simple.
Hold up the sign.
Jesus said that when He is lifted up (exalted) He will draw all men to Himself. But after that, we who follow Him must care for the souls drawn to Him. A “John 3:16” Christian may escape Hell, but he will not experience the joy of a Christian life and he will not be very effective in drawing still more to the Lord.
Filed under Christianity
In the beginning
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. – John 1:1-3 (NIV)
It’s terribly tempting to get into the intricate theology that is contained in these few words. And I started to do just that. But as I became more and more bogged down I realized that my real purpose here is not to instruct or convince. Rather, it is to share my thoughts. They may be insightful, they may be shallow and they may (certainly at times) be dead wrong. But in the end (no pun intended) they are mine.
I am examining this text with the benefit of centuries of Christian theology. So it is easy to read into the words meaning that wasn’t intended at the time. The Holy Spirit often does that. Holy men, as they are inspired by God, write things without always understanding what the fuller meaning of their words are. So it is here, I think. The first thing that jumps out at me is the idea of “being” and “being with” as simultaneously possible. Things, created things, can’t do that. I can’t “be” myself and “be with myself” at the same time. So John is either stating an obvious impossibility, or he is more likely stating something much more profound, namely that the Word is not a created thing, that the Word is in fact God. This meshes perfectly with the more fully developed doctrine of the Trinity which will not be elaborated until the fourth century. God is both Himself and His Word: they exist in perfect unity yet they are distinct.
The “word” he is referring to is the Greek word “logos.” Without getting into all the finer philosophical points, one of the obvious meanings of that word to readers at that time would have been the Greek philosophical concept of the logos as the active creative principle in the universe. And that is pretty much the meaning that John is conveying. God, the Word, creates all that there is by His Word. That’s a pretty obvious theme in the Old testament. “God said ‘Let there be light, and there was light’.” It was God’s Word that was the active agent of creation. We see this in verse three and also in this well-known passage from Isaiah.
11 So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11 (NIV)
“In the beginning” is the opening both of this Gospel as well as Genesis. John is talking about the time before creation. But we now know that time and space are two different ways of looking at the same thing. Physicists use the term “space-time” to refer to the matrix of being in which we exist. I believe that prior to creation there was neither space nor time. It makes no more sense to ask “when” the universe was created than to ask “where” it was created. There was no “where” there and there was no “when” then. We’re dipping our toes into that arcane subject called ontology, the philosophy of “being.” One of the main questions ontology addresses is “Why is there ‘is’ “?” Obviously the kind of “being” God possesses is profoundly different than what we perceive to be “being.” (What an unavoidable swarm of bees.) The existential theologian Paul Tillich approached it this way:
Paul Tillich was critical of the view of God as a type of being or presence. He felt that, if God were a being, God could not then properly be called the source of all being (due to the question of what, in turn, created God). As an alternative, he suggested that God be understood as the “ground of Being-Itself”.
http://religiousnaturalism.org/god-as-ground-of-being-paul-tillich/
Or as another Paul (the apostle) put it when expounding the Gospel among the philosophers at the Areopagus , “For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) (He is quoting the Cretan philosopher Epimenides.) The word “ground” here is taken is the artistic sense of figure and ground. In other words, the variation (figure) is only possible against the unchanging ground. A black stroke on canvas exists because it is something other than canvas. Analogies can be helpful if not carried too far. Think of a glassy smooth body of water. No motion, no disturbance of any kind. And then think of a ripple moving across the water. The ripple exists but it only exists as a change of the otherwise unchanging water. The water s the ground and the ripple is the figure. By extension, then, our “being” is nothing more (or less) than a ripple on the ground of God’s being. We know that God is unchanging in His essence but he is also omnipotent and therefore unconstrained by His own nature. And here we come to the mystery of creation. Why, if God is complete in Himself, does He choose to create? Why is there “is?”
Filed under Christianity, Philosophy
Opening thoughts, quirks and admonitions
So here I am again, firing up another blog. It can be said that one only fails when one stops trying. I’m still trying so I guess I’m not yet a failed “bloggist.” My other blogging experiences were frustrating. One was ignored (not uncommon) and the other was well-liked and read regularly. But I never received any comments. If I wanted to record my thoughts in a vacuum I could just have as easily done my writing in Word. But I want and need comments. So I depend on you who read this to contribute something, even if it’s just a brief note of approval/disapproval.
This particular blog grew out of the very pleasant exchanges I had over two years with my two speech therapists. I spent an hour twice a week hooked up to an electrical machine that still allowed me to talk. Very dangerous. Not the machine, of course. The part about allowing me to talk. And talk we did on a wide range of subjects. I know very, very little about many, many things and I am always keen on having an audience on which to demonstrate that. So our topics behaved like a non-linear system (which was, ironically, one of the topics), chaotic yet pleasantly so. We were usually around the areas of religion and spiritual development, science and math, and on rare occasions, politics as long as we agreed (which we did).
I assume that my two friends will be joining me here and hope that at least a few people will join us. Since the blog is private you won’t be able to find it by Googling it. Therefore I will need some word-of-mouth to add to our numbers. If you enjoy participating, invite your friends. Heck, invite your enemies. Sometimes they make some good points.
My friends are beginning a study of the book of John which is something about which I can say a few things . I don’t intend to do a detailed commentary. There are plenty out there to suit whatever hermeneutical inclinations you might have. I intend only to offer my limited understanding of Scripture in the hope that some light might arise both for me and my commentators.
I make no bones about my religious beliefs. I am Roman Catholic, a convert from a bible-believing Evangelical world. So I do know the book pretty well. I have no interest in converting anyone, and I’m willing to air all points of view. I won’t, however, allow this to become a debating society where more heat than light is generated. So feel free to strongly express your opinions. I will respect them, as I hope you will respect mine.
And so, as they say, on with the show. New post to follow soon.
Filed under Uncategorized
Welcoming the rationalist
I have invited Malibu Bob from christiannews.net to join us here. Among his posts Bob said the following:
Christianity is so unbelievable and so contrary to everyday observation on its surface, that the only way in which people can maintain such an untenable set of beliefs is by constant reinforcement.
That’s a pretty big challenge and one that I feel would be better addressed by breaking it into it a set of questions that can be approached more succinctly. So here’s how I think it should go. Bob may feel differently.
- The supernatural: Is there a “reality” not readily accessible to human perception? Or at the very least, is it even possible to prove that one way or the other?
- If such a thing may exist, then does God exist or is it even possible to prove that as well?
- If God exists, what is his/her/its relationship to the natural world and to us human beings?
- What is the nature of man and how does it relate to God’s nature?
- If man is imperfect, in what ways have we sought to achieve perfection?
- Finally, if God exists and it is not in our power to achieve perfection, what means have we been given to do so?
So to kick things off, let’s talk about that which is contrary to everyday observation, namely question one. What does Bob have to say about the possibility of the supernatural?
Filed under Apologetics, Christianity
Did Jesus lie about the age of the universe?
My friend from christiannews.net, Reason2012, crafted a very thorough and carefully reasoned response to one of my posts. Much of it concerns what Jesus Himself believed about Creation since, as the Bible clearly states, He was present at the creation of the world. And he makes a very valid point that we shouldn’t distort Scripture because it makes us uncomfortable by not comporting with our scientific point of view. Given the absolute sovereignty of God, there is every reason to assume that He may create His universe in whatever form He pleases and I can’t refute that. Omnipotence pretty much trumps everything.
However, I want to lay out some additional thoughts in relation to his response that clarifies my point of view. He begins by quoting part of my response.
“And what we know for certain about light makes it impossible for the universe to be much less than 13 BILLION years old.”
No, all we “know” on this topic are assumptions
– we ASSUME light traveled the same speed since light first existed
– we ASSUME God cannot change that speed
– we ASSUME God cannot create other things, heavenly bodies, in mature form where we assume they went through other processes before their current state when God could have easily created them in mature form skipping previous ‘states’ as well.
Following that logic, it would also be possible to say that God created the entire universe ten seconds ago with you having a memory of your entire life even though it didn’t “really” happen. That is PROBABLY absurd. (And not exactly Scriptural) But it leaves us with a quandary.
We know from Scripture that God’s nature is clearly evident in His creation.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. – Romans 1:20 NIV [emphasis mine]
The crux of the problem is this: when what we can “clearly see” does not jibe with what we understand from God’s Word, it seems as if we have to make a choice. Do we believe the Bible or do we believe the evidence of our senses (science)? Since both reflect the truth of God’s nature they can’t disagree. Do we distort the Word to make it conform to science, or do we distort science to make it conform to the Word? Or is it possible that we can believe that both are true but the reconciliation of the two exceeds our present understanding?
Before I delve into this, let’s first consider for a moment language in the context of culture. As I mentioned before, I was at one time an anthropology major concentrating in linguistics. The study of contemporary cultures from a socio-linguistic context shows that language and culture are so inextricably intertwined that it may be said that they are each an expression of the same thing. And language operates at multiple levels. At the lowest levels, it exists as unarticulated concepts. The process of translating from one language to another is, at its root, the reduction of one language to its conceptual level and the re-articulation of these concepts back into the target language. And since language and culture are so intertwined, a culture that lacks a particular concept will not have the means of expressing it. We see this in modern day translation when one language “borrows” from another because it is better expressed that way. For example, there is a word in German, schadenfreude that expresses the idea of deriving pleasure from another’s misfortune. There is no succinct way of expressing that concept in English so it was borrowed and is now a legitimate English word.There are many words borrowed from English that appear in other languages albeit in their phonology. For example, the word “steak” (or beef steak) appears in French as biftec, in Spanish as bistec, in Japanese as suteki.
In observing language development in children, we see that their use of language reflects their level of conceptual ability. If a five-year-old asks his father “what makes the car go,” he will probably be able to grasp the concept that the big thing under the hood “eats” gas and pushes the car. Dad will probably not get into the details of the internal combustion engine. And it is much the same with cultures. Human beings can only understand language in the context of their existing categories. And while they are certainly capable of learning new concepts, attempting to convey information information radically beyond their understanding is not likely to be fruitful.
So now let us now consider the Holy Spirit inspiring the writer of Genesis. There’s a pretty good chance that the Biblical story of creation existed in oral form long before it was written down, but for the sake of argument let’s assume that Moses sat down with pen and papyrus and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit began to recount the story of creation. Keep in mind that this is God the Holy Spirit who knows all of nature down to the tiniest details. And again for the sake of argument, let us assume that the universe was created 13 billion years ago, that the stars are distributed in three-dimensional space and not attached to the inside of a solid sphere (or “firmament”), and that the Earth is not its center, that matter is not composed of uniform substances but is composed of indescribably tiny particles. How could this information be conveyed in a true sense but still be comprehensible to Moses? In my opinion it was God’s intended purpose to convey the parts of the message that were essential for the spiritual life of the Jews in categories that were comprehensible in their culture. Did God lie? Is the withholding of unnecessary details dishonest or is it expedient?
So when Jesus spoke to His disciples, he spoke to them as the first-century Palestinians they were. Did he lie because He omitted the details of the Higgs boson? He had a very few years in which to convey the vitally important details of God’s plan of salvation. (Even then they didn’t understand Him a lot of the time). So he used terms with which they were already familiar. In their minds the world was the center of the universe and was recent in origin. Would it have served any purpose for Him to expound on the fact that when he said “from the beginning” he was referring to a time less than 13 billion years ago but more than several thousand?
In the intervening two thousand years we have learned a lot more about God’s creation and it continues to astound us how infinitely beautiful, complex and massive it really is. If Jesus were speaking to us today, would it make sense for Him to speak to us as first-century Palestininans, or would He have the ability to offer us even deeper understandings of the creation? (I picture him at CERN explaining to the particle physicists how to improve their experiments.) Why, then, do we insist on reading the Bible as if we were Palestinian fisherman?
By approaching it this way there is no need to distort Scripture, nor to reject our scientific understanding of the universe. Why, after all, did God give us such powerful brains? As our understanding increases we usually find that it conforms to the Scriptures in a way we could never have imagined. Who would have thought that the discovery of the background microwave radiation would settle the dispute among astronomers and cosmologists as to whether the universe had a beginning or had always existed. When the truth was finally determined, it turns out that Genesis was right, that everything that exists was brought into being all at once out of nothing.
We will not always be able to harmonize what we can discover through our senses with what the Holy Spirit teaches us, but when there are apparent conflicts we can say that we’re still very young and continue to learn at the feet of our Father.
Filed under Apologetics, Christianity
God, the Father
I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. – from the Nicene Creed
The creed begins with the single most important statement, a belief without which no faith is possible. “I believe in … God.”
This is not unique to Christian or even Judeo-Christian theology. Belief in deities is a cultural universal. All cultures have at their core a belief in something greater than they are. And anyone who rejects this basic belief is by definition an atheist. Catholic and Evangelicals alike confirm their unshakable belief in God.
But more importantly, we all believe in God as one God. We are both entirely monotheistic and this finds expression in a number of places in Scripture:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: – Deuteronomy 6:4 (KJV)
Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel
and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
“I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no god. – Isaiah 44:6 (KJV)And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: – Mark 12:29 (KJV)
We also share the trinitarian concept of God (for which the creed was its perfect affirmation), and this first part of the creed is devoted to God, the Father and affirms His role as omnipotent Creator.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him…” Colossians 1:13
It’s important to note that the phrase “all things visible and invisible” was in direct opposition to the teachings of the Gnostics who believed that there were a number of divine powers in the world. This affirmation in the creed makes it clear that there is no God above the God of Israel. In Christian theology, this means that however many invisible things there are (thrones, dominions, principalities, or powers) they are all created, but God and God alone is uncreated Being. On this point Catholics and Evangelicals agree 100%.
So even in this one short sentence we see a very full elaboration of the Person of God, the Father. I take great joy in knowing that Catholics and Evangelicals are in complete agreement thus far. If anyone feels this is not the case, please comment so we explore the possibility that we understand things differently.
Filed under Apologetics, Christianity