I ran across walking as a metaphor for how we walk through life's pain and suffering while reading a chapter from Tim Keller's new book on the subject. I think this metaphor is helpful. Let me briefly explain.
God wants us in this moment. The past is the past, and the future is the future. It is far too easy to get sucked into either one. And life is long. Sure, it will go past in the blink of an eye, but as it is lived, it is lived one day at a time, a marathon, putting one foot in front of the other one.
I want to live a good life. I want to live a life that is honoring to God. But I have besetting sin. I have indwelling sin. I have real struggles. What to do?
My natural reaction is to want to have it all fixed at once. And I put all my emotional energy into some resolution about being actually godly now. But when I do that, I am relying on my own righteousness, instead of God's righteousness for me. I look forward to the rest of my life and think, "Oh, what an opportunity I have to fix myself and make up for all the bad stuff I've done and thought and said in the past." And I lean on that theoretical future as a way to make God happy with me.
But that is not what the Gospel is. That is not the way the Gospel motivates. I look at my sanctification as a sprint to get to the destination now - godliness - so that I may rest in it for the rest of my life and set up a nice clean record so that I will feel better about myself when I come to die. No good.
God is good, and he is sovereign over our sanctification. And I think walking is a good metaphor for showing trust and for showing the way God works.
By walking into the future a step at a time, I have an unhurried trust that God is with me and will care for me. Eventually, enough of these small, slow, deliberate, God-ward steps will add up to something. It will get me somewhere. But there is no short-cut teleportation to glorification in the Christian life. Oh well.
We are pilgrims. Let's go with God, and lets go with each other. Step by step. We are not perfect. But our God is.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Evangelism
Christians are called to share the Gospel. This can be difficult when the message is sure to offend some.
This calls for a balance. Evangelism is telling people that they need Jesus, with as much conviction and as little coercion as possible. There is a nonchalance, too easy to slip into, that takes the bite out of our message, that makes it seem like we really don't mean it, or it isn't all that important. God is honored by our efforts to be wise, but I don't think he is honored by our efforts to be cool or liked. God calls us to be peacemakers, but we are not to do that by being cowards or doing away with a love for and duty towards truth.
How must evangelism work in the modern world? First, I think it must be said that it doesn't work in a way fundamentally different than any other time. We don't need innovation for the sake of innovation. People are people, and people are lost. God works where he will, and he awakens faith in people's hearts, and the Gospel message is news about something that has decisively happened. We preach the sufficiency of the resurrection of the Son of God yesterday, today, and until he comes back. And God is pleased to awaken faith through the preaching of this message.
Nevertheless, we are called to bring the message into our time among the people we are with. That requires some thought.
The secular pull in our world, in our country, in our time is powerful. I imagine that to the average secular person, if I tell them the Gospel, they probably will not feel that they need it. They probably will have questions and assumptions lurking in the back of their mind that are roadblocks to taking the Gospel seriously. It is hard to feel that you need a God that you don't really believe exists.
How do we work towards making the Gospel seem at least plausible when it is heard? I have three thoughts. They come from the conviction that, while God may sometimes work through a single conversation or relationship to bring another to faith, more often it happens over time, over wrestling, in a web of various relationships.
1) We need to cast our net wider. There are plenty of Gospel conversations to be had outside of one that includes a "You need Jesus. Would you pray this prayer?" If we let the culture drift without showing that God is real and relevant, we are making our job in evangelism harder. I do not mean that we need to shoulder the burden of making the wider culture Christian or perfect. Rather, I think we ought to have the courage to speak the truth winsomely at different points. To point out the absurdity of the world's way of thinking where we find it. These don't need to be fights to the death; they are not the main thing. We want to put a pebble in the world's shoe, one that is at least a small reminder that there is another Way. Though we will probably convince few people in these conversations, we want them to be aware that there is a real, self-consistent, intellectually rigorous, and existentially satisfying solution and explanation to things. And that more than an explanation, there is a Person. We, with patience and grace and courage, take every thought captive for Christ.
2) We need to live in a spirit of love. Jesus says that love is the most important thing. Jesus says that love for each other is how they will know that he was sent from the Father. Love is the greatest apologetic. Love is what will let people know that all the conversations we had pursuant to #1 above was not a mere moving of our lips, a running of our mouths. How we love is the dish that we serve our message on. If it stinks, our message will be a stench as well. Authentic love will show people that there is something real here, something worth investigating, something worth having. I think there is also a social aspect to the way people think and make decisions, and the Gospel will seem more plausible when we invite others into a community that has been truly shaped by the Gospel. And the evidence of whether it has been shaped by the Gospel is whether there is love.
3) Salvation is supernatural. There is a Holy Spirit. He has a lot to do with all of this. There is a spiritual battle to be fought. We ought not to think we can win people simply with the persuasiveness of our arguments, or with anything really, if Christ is not in the midst of our efforts. He must do a work. We are dependent on Him. And this ought to drive us to prayer. The unbeliever will not admit this - they will claim intellectual neutrality - but in evangelism there is a battle for the heart as well as for the mind. The unbelieving heart is in charge of its own destiny and it likes it, and it does not want to admit a God that could have control over it. The heart will put the mind to the service of preserving this status quo. And such an unseating will be difficult. Satan will not want it to happen. The other person will not, at the time, want it to happen. The world will not want it to happen. God is the only one powerful enough to make it happen.
These are my thoughts. I don't know why they were on my mind. I haven't had much blogging time lately, but I hope you are edified.
This calls for a balance. Evangelism is telling people that they need Jesus, with as much conviction and as little coercion as possible. There is a nonchalance, too easy to slip into, that takes the bite out of our message, that makes it seem like we really don't mean it, or it isn't all that important. God is honored by our efforts to be wise, but I don't think he is honored by our efforts to be cool or liked. God calls us to be peacemakers, but we are not to do that by being cowards or doing away with a love for and duty towards truth.
How must evangelism work in the modern world? First, I think it must be said that it doesn't work in a way fundamentally different than any other time. We don't need innovation for the sake of innovation. People are people, and people are lost. God works where he will, and he awakens faith in people's hearts, and the Gospel message is news about something that has decisively happened. We preach the sufficiency of the resurrection of the Son of God yesterday, today, and until he comes back. And God is pleased to awaken faith through the preaching of this message.
Nevertheless, we are called to bring the message into our time among the people we are with. That requires some thought.
The secular pull in our world, in our country, in our time is powerful. I imagine that to the average secular person, if I tell them the Gospel, they probably will not feel that they need it. They probably will have questions and assumptions lurking in the back of their mind that are roadblocks to taking the Gospel seriously. It is hard to feel that you need a God that you don't really believe exists.
How do we work towards making the Gospel seem at least plausible when it is heard? I have three thoughts. They come from the conviction that, while God may sometimes work through a single conversation or relationship to bring another to faith, more often it happens over time, over wrestling, in a web of various relationships.
1) We need to cast our net wider. There are plenty of Gospel conversations to be had outside of one that includes a "You need Jesus. Would you pray this prayer?" If we let the culture drift without showing that God is real and relevant, we are making our job in evangelism harder. I do not mean that we need to shoulder the burden of making the wider culture Christian or perfect. Rather, I think we ought to have the courage to speak the truth winsomely at different points. To point out the absurdity of the world's way of thinking where we find it. These don't need to be fights to the death; they are not the main thing. We want to put a pebble in the world's shoe, one that is at least a small reminder that there is another Way. Though we will probably convince few people in these conversations, we want them to be aware that there is a real, self-consistent, intellectually rigorous, and existentially satisfying solution and explanation to things. And that more than an explanation, there is a Person. We, with patience and grace and courage, take every thought captive for Christ.
2) We need to live in a spirit of love. Jesus says that love is the most important thing. Jesus says that love for each other is how they will know that he was sent from the Father. Love is the greatest apologetic. Love is what will let people know that all the conversations we had pursuant to #1 above was not a mere moving of our lips, a running of our mouths. How we love is the dish that we serve our message on. If it stinks, our message will be a stench as well. Authentic love will show people that there is something real here, something worth investigating, something worth having. I think there is also a social aspect to the way people think and make decisions, and the Gospel will seem more plausible when we invite others into a community that has been truly shaped by the Gospel. And the evidence of whether it has been shaped by the Gospel is whether there is love.
3) Salvation is supernatural. There is a Holy Spirit. He has a lot to do with all of this. There is a spiritual battle to be fought. We ought not to think we can win people simply with the persuasiveness of our arguments, or with anything really, if Christ is not in the midst of our efforts. He must do a work. We are dependent on Him. And this ought to drive us to prayer. The unbeliever will not admit this - they will claim intellectual neutrality - but in evangelism there is a battle for the heart as well as for the mind. The unbelieving heart is in charge of its own destiny and it likes it, and it does not want to admit a God that could have control over it. The heart will put the mind to the service of preserving this status quo. And such an unseating will be difficult. Satan will not want it to happen. The other person will not, at the time, want it to happen. The world will not want it to happen. God is the only one powerful enough to make it happen.
These are my thoughts. I don't know why they were on my mind. I haven't had much blogging time lately, but I hope you are edified.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Statement of Purpose
I will always remain sinful and will fall short of the ideals and goals I set for myself. I will never fully live up to a statement of purpose. Wow, what an pessimistic way to start out a post like this, you might say. I just know myself too well.
But at the same time I have Gospel hope. He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion in Christ. There are innumerable unfinished storylines in my life, weaving themselves together. The same is true for you.
I also believe that our God is a God of order. We experience cause and effect in our world because he set it up that way. All the order we perceive in the world is a reflection of the ultimate order that actually exists within God himself. As the Creator, his creation manifests and displays this truth about him. God is also a God of truth, so we become Christians by believing in Jesus. We have to know something about him in order to believe. We learn this through sentences and words, under-girded and brought by the blood-sacrifice of Jesus and the blood sacrifice of martyrs and missionaries who have given all to see these glorious truths go forth. We don't catch Christianity like we catch a cold. We must hear the actual truth of Jesus preached, and we believe, and the Spirit takes residence in us, and we are changed into the likeness of Jesus. There is an order and a necessary truth element to all of this.
So based on the orderliness of the way the world works and the hope that I have in God, I believe it is helpful to be thoughtful. He calls us to love him with all our mind, in addition to heart and strength. My thoughts shape the way I live. Your thoughts shape the way you live. And we ought to live in a way that is useful and pleasing to God. We ought to live for his glory and not our own. If our thoughts shape the way we live, and if we are to live in such a way that pleases God, thinking as clearly as possible about God's glory and desires for us is of great importance.
Praise be to God that we are not left in the darkness. He has spoken. He has given us his Word. He has not remained nameless and faceless in the dark, but progressively out of love he has revealed more and more of himself, and he has done so ultimately in the person of Jesus, God and man. It is to him that we are to be discipled. His Word and his words are to shape the way we think about how to live with God and for God and by God.
All of our lives are different. There is no single Christian life that we are all called to live. We are not Stepford Wives. We are not robots. We are to live in strict conformity to the way everyone else is. God paints with many colors, some of which we have not even imagined yet. The beauty and challenge and excitement of the Christian life is that Jesus is real and true, he loves us, he wants to be in relationship with us, and he gives freely His Spirit to take up residence in us and live the Christian life specifically from our own spot. I am not meant to be the next ____________. I am meant to be Daniel Richardson, follower of God.
I think, based on all these things, that it is helpful to come up with a statement of purpose. I know that my life is more complicated than may be captured in this sort of thing. But I do not think it is worthless, and only time may tell how helpful it would have been. It is good, nevertheless, at any stage to think about what is really important.
Here goes...
My purpose: To love God by worshiping Jesus, submitting to Him as Lord, enjoying fellowship and prayer in the Spirit, and daily growing in reverential knowledge of the Word. To love Nicole and others sacrificially by placing their needs above my own. To consistently disciple others, share the Gospel unashamedly in all opportunities God grants, and sacrificially support the spread of the Gospel to all peoples. To become a good, well-balanced, hard-working lawyer who cares deeply about justice for orphans, widows, and others in distress.
Maybe a little long, but it covers all the important things, I think. They will be good reminders...
But at the same time I have Gospel hope. He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion in Christ. There are innumerable unfinished storylines in my life, weaving themselves together. The same is true for you.
I also believe that our God is a God of order. We experience cause and effect in our world because he set it up that way. All the order we perceive in the world is a reflection of the ultimate order that actually exists within God himself. As the Creator, his creation manifests and displays this truth about him. God is also a God of truth, so we become Christians by believing in Jesus. We have to know something about him in order to believe. We learn this through sentences and words, under-girded and brought by the blood-sacrifice of Jesus and the blood sacrifice of martyrs and missionaries who have given all to see these glorious truths go forth. We don't catch Christianity like we catch a cold. We must hear the actual truth of Jesus preached, and we believe, and the Spirit takes residence in us, and we are changed into the likeness of Jesus. There is an order and a necessary truth element to all of this.
So based on the orderliness of the way the world works and the hope that I have in God, I believe it is helpful to be thoughtful. He calls us to love him with all our mind, in addition to heart and strength. My thoughts shape the way I live. Your thoughts shape the way you live. And we ought to live in a way that is useful and pleasing to God. We ought to live for his glory and not our own. If our thoughts shape the way we live, and if we are to live in such a way that pleases God, thinking as clearly as possible about God's glory and desires for us is of great importance.
Praise be to God that we are not left in the darkness. He has spoken. He has given us his Word. He has not remained nameless and faceless in the dark, but progressively out of love he has revealed more and more of himself, and he has done so ultimately in the person of Jesus, God and man. It is to him that we are to be discipled. His Word and his words are to shape the way we think about how to live with God and for God and by God.
All of our lives are different. There is no single Christian life that we are all called to live. We are not Stepford Wives. We are not robots. We are to live in strict conformity to the way everyone else is. God paints with many colors, some of which we have not even imagined yet. The beauty and challenge and excitement of the Christian life is that Jesus is real and true, he loves us, he wants to be in relationship with us, and he gives freely His Spirit to take up residence in us and live the Christian life specifically from our own spot. I am not meant to be the next ____________. I am meant to be Daniel Richardson, follower of God.
I think, based on all these things, that it is helpful to come up with a statement of purpose. I know that my life is more complicated than may be captured in this sort of thing. But I do not think it is worthless, and only time may tell how helpful it would have been. It is good, nevertheless, at any stage to think about what is really important.
Here goes...
My purpose: To love God by worshiping Jesus, submitting to Him as Lord, enjoying fellowship and prayer in the Spirit, and daily growing in reverential knowledge of the Word. To love Nicole and others sacrificially by placing their needs above my own. To consistently disciple others, share the Gospel unashamedly in all opportunities God grants, and sacrificially support the spread of the Gospel to all peoples. To become a good, well-balanced, hard-working lawyer who cares deeply about justice for orphans, widows, and others in distress.
Maybe a little long, but it covers all the important things, I think. They will be good reminders...
Friday, August 2, 2013
My Path to Law School
Dear readers of my blog,
I know that I am not a regular blogger anyway. I don't try to write something everyday. Sometimes I will write a whole lot in a month. Sometimes I won't write anything for three months in a row. Oh well.
In about ten days I am starting law school.
Why am I doing this?
Basically because I want to. I really want to. I could try to make it sound high and mighty and theological, but that wouldn't be true to reality. Last year I was becoming disillusioned with the idea of being a teacher for my life's work. Teaching is for some people and it's not for others. Some might say I didn't give it long enough. Perhaps that is a fair criticism. I don't know, and at this point I am going to law school either way.
In high school I did mock trial. It was an extracurricular that I put a whole lot of effort into, and I was good at it. I enjoyed the competition of it. I enjoyed the preparation of it. I went to college planning to do law school afterwards.
In college I developed some bad habits. In high school I was driven by the desire to succeed - and have a reputation for succeeding - at all the things I did. I did that pretty well. Going into college, I saw the emptiness of that, but I swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. I knew relationships were more important and I poured a lot of new time into my relationships with my fraternity brothers, with my girlfriend (now wife), and with God. I did ministry things. I listened to a lot of sermons. I didn't go to a lot of classes.
My GPA dropped, and to retain my scholarship I took a single class the summer after my freshman year. It was a pre-law seminar. I had just listened to a lot of Francis Chan, and the idea of Christian ministry and giving away (almost) all your money had been painted very attractively in my mind - though I had no money really to give away and obviously had not spent any actual time earning any real money. The seminar brought in practicing lawyers. They talked about long, hard hours. They talked about the difficulty of law school. They conveyed the importance of earning money. Working long, hard hours to earn it. Though I didn't see it at the time, I had become quite lazy, and the worldly idea of earning money just seemed sort of sub-spiritual.
And I decided to change career paths.
I started in on Industrial Engineering. I had good semesters and bad semesters. I never finally applied myself in the way that I know I can. I regret this. Though I went through and graduated with this degree, I knew towards the end that I had no taste for actually becoming an engineer.
What to do?
I wanted to find a job that would give me time for family, that would allow Nicole and I to live close to her mom, that would be fulfilling, in which I would feel like I was making a difference, a job that might give me time to pursue missions opportunities. I have always enjoyed math tutoring, and teaching jobs are necessary basically everywhere. Summers off would be awesome. I knew I didn't want to do engineering.
So I started going to Kennesaw and substitute teaching until I got a job teaching at Coahulla Creek in Dalton. I may do some complaining here, but I am actually very grateful for that job and that time in my life. It was their first year, and it was my first year, too. Many factors combined to make this a difficult year for me. It was my first year being married, and Nicole had a difficult time moving to Dalton. I was doing my grad school, so about three nights a week I would leave from school to go over an hour away to Kennesaw before returning home late. At Coahulla, I was teaching four classes out of four possible class periods, and I did not have a textbook to teach from. Mainly that was due to the modern shift in thinking about how we should do effective teaching. We should not rely on textbooks. Very well and good, but also difficult for someone strapped for time as I was. Probably the final straw that sealed my first year misery was the sheer class sizes, due I imagine to the fact that it was a public school. All my classes were around 25-30 students.
What did I learn during this year?
1. Margin is a good thing. It is not worth it to cram your schedule to the point of exhaustion.
2. Marriage is difficult but rewarding. It builds patience and rewards with joy.
3. Teaching is like marriage as described in #2.
4. I really enjoy math. I enjoy teaching people who are interested in learning. I do not enjoy the process of trying to get students interested in learning.
It was in the midst of that spring that I halted my Kennesaw classes and decided I wanted to go for law school. What precipitated this change?
1. I was dissatisfied with who I was as a teacher. I could not picture myself doing it for life.
2. I came to a more balanced view of the reasons for my original course change. I do not think hard work is to be avoided. I do not think earning money is a bad thing - as long as we do not make it an ultimate thing.
3. I realized the things I enjoy doing are reading, writing, and arguing. Those are things I found myself doing on top of my normal job of teaching math. Law school and the practice of law, as I figured and still do, are basically this - reading and writing and arguing. A fit!
4. Twice in my relatively young life I have been called to jury duty and ended up serving on the jury. Both times it has given me an itch to get back in the courtroom. It has made me long for mock trial.
5. Since going to college, I have not scratched my competitive itch. I have suppressed it. The competition of a courtroom challenge is something I long after. The competition of law school is something I look forward to. Maybe my high school motivations were not simply depraved through and through but were a gift of God.
6. In teaching I was not making very much money. I did not have prospects to make very much money. I decided that I did in fact want to make more money, so that Nicole could stay home when we have kids, God-willing. I look to my own Dad as an example of how this can work well and be a thorough blessing.
7. I think I may as well disclose some of my baser motives, too. A shot at law school is a shot at redeeming myself in my own eyes. I ended at Georgia Tech well enough but below my standards for myself. In some sense, I want to prove to myself that I can still succeed academically and professionally. I know that this is dangerous and that my identity must be found in Christ and not in my resume or success. That can be a black hole. Nevertheless, this motivates me. And secondly, I think there has been some envy in my heart. Far more envy that greed, I may say, though the lure of riches will be something I must guard against, too. In regards to envy, I have seen friends continue on, and some of my mock trial colleagues go on to law school before me. While teaching, just the thought gave me an itch to go.
All of these things, the good and the bad, coincided to compel me to ask Nicole if we could do it. It has been one of the greatest blessings and most exciting parts of my life that she has agreed so willingly to this career change.
This last year we moved down to Brooks. We finished the basement and are living with Nicole's mom and their three dogs. I thought that this would be difficult - and certainly it has been sometimes - but for the most part it has been very good. I have been welcomed, and Nicole and I have been able to grow together.
I got a job this year - I couldn't go to law school yet - teaching at Trinity Christian School. I also coached. It was a much easier time for me this year, and much more enjoyable. I enjoyed smaller class sizes, more experience on my own part, and the Christian environment. I am glad that I have had a good year because this allows me to feel even more confident in my decision to pursue a law degree. For me, this means that I have not run from teaching because it has been all bad. I am instead pursuing something that I really want to pursue.
Applying to law school was a humbling and a lifting experience. I decided to go to Georgia State because it was the best and most cost-effective school closest to where we live. I will be commuting. Georgia State was the only one I applied to. All my eggs in one basket, I guess. My GPA was slightly lower than the average incoming GPA for Georgia State, so I knew I would need a higher LSAT score. I studied for it, took it, and immediately cancelled my score, knowing that I could do better. The Logic Games section was entirely novel to me, taking too much time, and having done poorly on an early section, I was distracted for the later reading sections. But I regrouped, gave myself three more months and took it again. I did well this time. I figured there was a decent chance I could get in, but I wasn't counting my eggs before they hatched.
I got an email that I was admitted! Nicole and I quit our respective jobs on the same day, and Nicole had interviewed for a Trinity job that she was offered later on. Financially we were stressed about how we could make it happen, but we knew we were going to try to do it either way. And then I got a wonderfully unexpected voicemail. I hadn't expected and hadn't even thought to pray for it, but the school awarded me a scholarship worth a whole lot of money! They apparently considered everyone who applied.
So I have spent the summer teaching summer school, relaxing, and doing some fun reading before I have do lots and lots of required reading. I am thrilled to be going. I know that God is going to teach me a lot and humble me a lot and use me in some ways unforeseen. This is all exciting. Please pray for me.
I said at the beginning of this that I am an infrequent blogger, and I imagine that in the near future I will become even more so.
Please pray that I will learn how to be good lawyer to the glory of God and that I will live for his glory and not my own during law school.
I know that I am not a regular blogger anyway. I don't try to write something everyday. Sometimes I will write a whole lot in a month. Sometimes I won't write anything for three months in a row. Oh well.
In about ten days I am starting law school.
Why am I doing this?
Basically because I want to. I really want to. I could try to make it sound high and mighty and theological, but that wouldn't be true to reality. Last year I was becoming disillusioned with the idea of being a teacher for my life's work. Teaching is for some people and it's not for others. Some might say I didn't give it long enough. Perhaps that is a fair criticism. I don't know, and at this point I am going to law school either way.
In high school I did mock trial. It was an extracurricular that I put a whole lot of effort into, and I was good at it. I enjoyed the competition of it. I enjoyed the preparation of it. I went to college planning to do law school afterwards.
In college I developed some bad habits. In high school I was driven by the desire to succeed - and have a reputation for succeeding - at all the things I did. I did that pretty well. Going into college, I saw the emptiness of that, but I swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. I knew relationships were more important and I poured a lot of new time into my relationships with my fraternity brothers, with my girlfriend (now wife), and with God. I did ministry things. I listened to a lot of sermons. I didn't go to a lot of classes.
My GPA dropped, and to retain my scholarship I took a single class the summer after my freshman year. It was a pre-law seminar. I had just listened to a lot of Francis Chan, and the idea of Christian ministry and giving away (almost) all your money had been painted very attractively in my mind - though I had no money really to give away and obviously had not spent any actual time earning any real money. The seminar brought in practicing lawyers. They talked about long, hard hours. They talked about the difficulty of law school. They conveyed the importance of earning money. Working long, hard hours to earn it. Though I didn't see it at the time, I had become quite lazy, and the worldly idea of earning money just seemed sort of sub-spiritual.
And I decided to change career paths.
I started in on Industrial Engineering. I had good semesters and bad semesters. I never finally applied myself in the way that I know I can. I regret this. Though I went through and graduated with this degree, I knew towards the end that I had no taste for actually becoming an engineer.
What to do?
I wanted to find a job that would give me time for family, that would allow Nicole and I to live close to her mom, that would be fulfilling, in which I would feel like I was making a difference, a job that might give me time to pursue missions opportunities. I have always enjoyed math tutoring, and teaching jobs are necessary basically everywhere. Summers off would be awesome. I knew I didn't want to do engineering.
So I started going to Kennesaw and substitute teaching until I got a job teaching at Coahulla Creek in Dalton. I may do some complaining here, but I am actually very grateful for that job and that time in my life. It was their first year, and it was my first year, too. Many factors combined to make this a difficult year for me. It was my first year being married, and Nicole had a difficult time moving to Dalton. I was doing my grad school, so about three nights a week I would leave from school to go over an hour away to Kennesaw before returning home late. At Coahulla, I was teaching four classes out of four possible class periods, and I did not have a textbook to teach from. Mainly that was due to the modern shift in thinking about how we should do effective teaching. We should not rely on textbooks. Very well and good, but also difficult for someone strapped for time as I was. Probably the final straw that sealed my first year misery was the sheer class sizes, due I imagine to the fact that it was a public school. All my classes were around 25-30 students.
What did I learn during this year?
1. Margin is a good thing. It is not worth it to cram your schedule to the point of exhaustion.
2. Marriage is difficult but rewarding. It builds patience and rewards with joy.
3. Teaching is like marriage as described in #2.
4. I really enjoy math. I enjoy teaching people who are interested in learning. I do not enjoy the process of trying to get students interested in learning.
It was in the midst of that spring that I halted my Kennesaw classes and decided I wanted to go for law school. What precipitated this change?
1. I was dissatisfied with who I was as a teacher. I could not picture myself doing it for life.
2. I came to a more balanced view of the reasons for my original course change. I do not think hard work is to be avoided. I do not think earning money is a bad thing - as long as we do not make it an ultimate thing.
3. I realized the things I enjoy doing are reading, writing, and arguing. Those are things I found myself doing on top of my normal job of teaching math. Law school and the practice of law, as I figured and still do, are basically this - reading and writing and arguing. A fit!
4. Twice in my relatively young life I have been called to jury duty and ended up serving on the jury. Both times it has given me an itch to get back in the courtroom. It has made me long for mock trial.
5. Since going to college, I have not scratched my competitive itch. I have suppressed it. The competition of a courtroom challenge is something I long after. The competition of law school is something I look forward to. Maybe my high school motivations were not simply depraved through and through but were a gift of God.
6. In teaching I was not making very much money. I did not have prospects to make very much money. I decided that I did in fact want to make more money, so that Nicole could stay home when we have kids, God-willing. I look to my own Dad as an example of how this can work well and be a thorough blessing.
7. I think I may as well disclose some of my baser motives, too. A shot at law school is a shot at redeeming myself in my own eyes. I ended at Georgia Tech well enough but below my standards for myself. In some sense, I want to prove to myself that I can still succeed academically and professionally. I know that this is dangerous and that my identity must be found in Christ and not in my resume or success. That can be a black hole. Nevertheless, this motivates me. And secondly, I think there has been some envy in my heart. Far more envy that greed, I may say, though the lure of riches will be something I must guard against, too. In regards to envy, I have seen friends continue on, and some of my mock trial colleagues go on to law school before me. While teaching, just the thought gave me an itch to go.
All of these things, the good and the bad, coincided to compel me to ask Nicole if we could do it. It has been one of the greatest blessings and most exciting parts of my life that she has agreed so willingly to this career change.
This last year we moved down to Brooks. We finished the basement and are living with Nicole's mom and their three dogs. I thought that this would be difficult - and certainly it has been sometimes - but for the most part it has been very good. I have been welcomed, and Nicole and I have been able to grow together.
I got a job this year - I couldn't go to law school yet - teaching at Trinity Christian School. I also coached. It was a much easier time for me this year, and much more enjoyable. I enjoyed smaller class sizes, more experience on my own part, and the Christian environment. I am glad that I have had a good year because this allows me to feel even more confident in my decision to pursue a law degree. For me, this means that I have not run from teaching because it has been all bad. I am instead pursuing something that I really want to pursue.
Applying to law school was a humbling and a lifting experience. I decided to go to Georgia State because it was the best and most cost-effective school closest to where we live. I will be commuting. Georgia State was the only one I applied to. All my eggs in one basket, I guess. My GPA was slightly lower than the average incoming GPA for Georgia State, so I knew I would need a higher LSAT score. I studied for it, took it, and immediately cancelled my score, knowing that I could do better. The Logic Games section was entirely novel to me, taking too much time, and having done poorly on an early section, I was distracted for the later reading sections. But I regrouped, gave myself three more months and took it again. I did well this time. I figured there was a decent chance I could get in, but I wasn't counting my eggs before they hatched.
I got an email that I was admitted! Nicole and I quit our respective jobs on the same day, and Nicole had interviewed for a Trinity job that she was offered later on. Financially we were stressed about how we could make it happen, but we knew we were going to try to do it either way. And then I got a wonderfully unexpected voicemail. I hadn't expected and hadn't even thought to pray for it, but the school awarded me a scholarship worth a whole lot of money! They apparently considered everyone who applied.
So I have spent the summer teaching summer school, relaxing, and doing some fun reading before I have do lots and lots of required reading. I am thrilled to be going. I know that God is going to teach me a lot and humble me a lot and use me in some ways unforeseen. This is all exciting. Please pray for me.
I said at the beginning of this that I am an infrequent blogger, and I imagine that in the near future I will become even more so.
Please pray that I will learn how to be good lawyer to the glory of God and that I will live for his glory and not my own during law school.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
A Shorter List of Book Suggestions
1. There is a God (Antony Flew)
2. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (FF Bruce)
3. Mere Christianity (CS Lewis)
4. The Resurrection of Jesus (Mike Licona)
5. The God Who is There (Francis Schaeffer)
That would be my short list to suggest for an atheist to read, perhaps even in this order. I hope this is helpful. This probably clocks in at about 1500 pages of reading. About five pages a day, one could get through this in less than a year.
2. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (FF Bruce)
3. Mere Christianity (CS Lewis)
4. The Resurrection of Jesus (Mike Licona)
5. The God Who is There (Francis Schaeffer)
That would be my short list to suggest for an atheist to read, perhaps even in this order. I hope this is helpful. This probably clocks in at about 1500 pages of reading. About five pages a day, one could get through this in less than a year.
Some Book Suggestions on Whether Christianity is True
There are a ton of potential apologetics books to read. So if I were to make a handful of suggestions to an atheist friend, what would I suggest? I think I ought to limit myself to five or six suggestions. We'll see...
Let me start with the book I am currently reading. The Resurrection of Jesus by Michael Licona. This is a rather large book that seeks to ask whether Jesus was raised from the dead from a historical perspective. Licona attempts to find a place of neutrality and apply normal historical methods to the question. Part of this neutral attempt means that he does not assume that the Bible was inspired by God, and he does not assume that the books are inerrant. He does quite a bit of discussion about the theory of history, methods of history, how this type of investigation should be done, and what all the relevant sources are. Another book that I hope to get to is by NT Wright - The Resurrection of the Son of God. This is another hefty tome on the resurrection. Wright is a prominent New Testament scholar from England, and this book is the third in a series on the origins of Christianity. It might be worth it to backtrack and do volumes one and two which provide some background. Reading those three volumes would itself probably be a year-long project. I think the resurrection is a good place to start because it is at the heart of the Christian claim. Paul himself says that if Christ is not raised from the dead, we above all men are most to be pitied and our faith is worthless. The spread of Christianity in Acts was based on the preaching of a resurrected Christ. This was not a tack-on but rather part of the center of what was being proclaimed and what was being believed. This, then, seems like a good place to start to me. There are more popular level treatments of this topic, but for a thorough treatment, these two are probably the best place to go.
I think that a lot of skepticism towards Christianity today comes from science. I do not think that is justified exactly, but that argument is for another post. There are a few suggestions I would make in this vein. First, I would suggest There is a God by Antony Flew. Flew was probably the most serious and notorious atheist in the decades before Dawkins and company. But later in his life he became a theist. He did not subscribe to any particular form of theism, and he disbelieved in an afterlife, but this was quite a change, and the reasons that he gives were primarily based on scientific evidence. This book is shorter and relatively easy to read. It is a mixture of autobiography and apologetics from someone who was helped by science towards theism but never made the step toward Christianity. Second, I know it is a little dated, but I would suggest Darwin on Trial as a step towards having a more balanced opinion on evolution, especially if evolution would be the hang-up for you towards coming to faith in Christ. Johnson is a Christian, but he does not subscribe to a young-earth view, and he does not even argue for creationism in this book. Instead, it is primarily a polemic against evolution as widely understood, poking holes and asking some questions that Darwinists would not much want to have asked. (The link I have provided actually appears to be updated; it is merely my own edition that is dated.) There are other books and literature on intelligent design that I could mention, but Darwin on Trial would be a good starting place for those interested in that vein of thinking. Some of the other books are very technical, and it is easy to get bogged down in the science, as if I am missing a lot of prerequisite classes to truly understand what is being argued. Finally, in this scientific vein I would like to suggest The Language of God by Francis Collins. I read it a long time ago, and I don't think my views on things would line up exactly with him, but it is interesting, and Collins is the head of the Human Genome Project. This book is part autobiographical as well, and Collins surveys several different options for the way that science and faith may relate. (As a note, I may say that all three of these books are shorter and probably easier to read. For something meatier to digest, and on my personal wish list is Where the Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga.)
A great question to ask is whether the Bible is reliable, whether it is true. Certainly the books on resurrection above will deal with the question. But there are some good books that center specifically on this. The most concise and most widely read would probably be The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by FF Bruce. This book is barely over a hundred pages, but it gives a good answer to this question, and this would be the first place I would direct people. Another book, longer but in the same vein, would be The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is an important and newer book on the role of eyewitness testimony in the Gospels. I also read a newer book before Christmas this year called Reinventing Jesus which dealt with the issues of how Christianity arose and how the documents would have been passed along. Issues of corruption in transmission have recently been raised by guys like Bart Ehrman, and I think this provides some good common sense answers to the issues he is raising. Admittedly, I have read somewhat narrowly in this area because I have not read as much on the reliability of the Old Testament. But I think that the New Testament builds on and takes the Old Testament to be true. If the New Testament is true, Jesus' trusting and referencing and fulfilling the Old Testament would imply the truth of the Old Testament. Therefore, I think it is sufficient, at least for my own faith, to have good reasons for relying on the New Testament. A very good book on the issue of whether we have the right New Testament would be Canon Revisited, although it is very clear that it asks this question from the perspective of the Christian. Does a Christian have warrant for believing that we have the right books? He answers yes. Maybe not the best place to start, but a very interesting read. I have also heard that Inspiration and Authority of the Bible by BB Warfield is a classic and a solid defense of the Bible; it is a little longer. I have not ready any of them, but I would also personally be interested in obtaining and reading something on archaeology and the Bible: The Stones Cry Out or The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament or On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Plenty to chew on here, but probably best to start with Bruce and move on from there.
Most of the books I have referenced would seek to cover some very specific ground, whether science or the resurrection or some particular aspect of the reliability of the Bible. But there is also a place for a more big-picture overview. Classical apologetics - there are different schools of thought on apologetics - would first argue for theism in general, then for Christianity in particular. I would commend two books that are overview books but that are not aimed at making a bestseller list. The Reason for God by Tim Keller would probably be an easier read in this vein, but for a more in depth look I would recommend Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig and Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler. Both of these books seek to deal in a very detailed way with nearly all of the major issues in showing whether Christianity is true. Craig's book spends two meaty chapters in the middle on arguments for the existence of God, which provides the type of argumentation he uses in debate, but in much greater detail. Geisler's book does a survey of different philosophies and ways of knowing, critiquing along the way and commending theism. Again, very detailed overview. I have not made it all the way through either of these books, but I have benefited from portions out of each of them. Geisler and Craig both have written a lot of other books, some popular, some scholarly, but these are probably their two most foundational books to the rest of what they write. If you are a glutton for punishment or if you want an even greater level of detail, I would first recommend Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by Craig and Moreland. This book widens the scope from merely making an apologetics argument to looking at the foundation that Christianity provides for looking at nearly every imaginable question. Craig and many of today's Christian philosophers and apologists have benefited from influence by a man named Alvin Plantinga who helped to bring God back into the philosophical conversation in the 1970's. He has written a number of books, but the one I have and intend to read is Warranted Christian Belief. He deals at length with the issue of when a person may be said to have warrant for a belief and additionally whether the Christian is warranted in his religious belief. A popular level digest of Plantinga's thought may be found in A Shot of Faith to the Head by Mitch Stokes. I read this book in a single day and enjoyed it immensely. It is much easier to read than Plantinga's tome. Another suggestion on the way out of this paragraph - Knowing Christ Today by Dallas Willard.
(It would appear that I write very long paragraphs and that I failed in epic fashion to contain this to five or six suggestions.)
Let me land this plane... I want to finish with three book suggestions that I might classify as classics of apologetics in the 20th century. CS Lewis is probably the most famous apologist of the 20th century, and he wrote a number of books in a number of genres. He wrote Miracles, The Abolition of Man, and the Problem of Pain. All of these deal with some aspect of apologetics. But my all-time favorite suggestion to make from Lewis would be Mere Christianity. This book has probably had more influence on me and the way I think than any other book outside the Bible. I have read it at least three times. I highly recommend it. In it Lewis gives a fresh look at what Christianity really is at its heart and why we should believe it. I find it to be compelling. He does not wade into all the details of all the potential rabbit trails that some of my listed books might, but he puts the big-picture together for me in a way that grabs my heart as well as my head. One of the reading influences in Lewis' conversion - he was an atheist until later into his career as an English professor - was a man named GK Chesterton. The book of Chesterton that I have enjoyed the most would be Orthodoxy. Again, this is one of those big-picture books, but I recommend it because it literally makes me laugh out loud. It is probably the only book that consistently makes me do that. I find Chesterton to be hilarious, sarcastic, and incisive about ultimate matters. A third suggestion would be The God Who Is There by Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer is valuable in detailing the history of Western thought to show how we have arrived culturally, socially, religiously at our current location in history, and he is valuable in helping to push people to see the inconsistencies within their own worldviews. He helps us to be disciplined to see the logical effects of our presuppositions.
I hope that this list is helpful. I extend the invitation to anyone who is not a Christian but would like to read and discuss with me - please select one of these books and I will purchase it for you and work through it with you. I believe Christianity is true, and I believe that it is important, and I believe that I ought to share it. Thank you for your consideration and time spent reading this. Have a great evening!
Let me start with the book I am currently reading. The Resurrection of Jesus by Michael Licona. This is a rather large book that seeks to ask whether Jesus was raised from the dead from a historical perspective. Licona attempts to find a place of neutrality and apply normal historical methods to the question. Part of this neutral attempt means that he does not assume that the Bible was inspired by God, and he does not assume that the books are inerrant. He does quite a bit of discussion about the theory of history, methods of history, how this type of investigation should be done, and what all the relevant sources are. Another book that I hope to get to is by NT Wright - The Resurrection of the Son of God. This is another hefty tome on the resurrection. Wright is a prominent New Testament scholar from England, and this book is the third in a series on the origins of Christianity. It might be worth it to backtrack and do volumes one and two which provide some background. Reading those three volumes would itself probably be a year-long project. I think the resurrection is a good place to start because it is at the heart of the Christian claim. Paul himself says that if Christ is not raised from the dead, we above all men are most to be pitied and our faith is worthless. The spread of Christianity in Acts was based on the preaching of a resurrected Christ. This was not a tack-on but rather part of the center of what was being proclaimed and what was being believed. This, then, seems like a good place to start to me. There are more popular level treatments of this topic, but for a thorough treatment, these two are probably the best place to go.
I think that a lot of skepticism towards Christianity today comes from science. I do not think that is justified exactly, but that argument is for another post. There are a few suggestions I would make in this vein. First, I would suggest There is a God by Antony Flew. Flew was probably the most serious and notorious atheist in the decades before Dawkins and company. But later in his life he became a theist. He did not subscribe to any particular form of theism, and he disbelieved in an afterlife, but this was quite a change, and the reasons that he gives were primarily based on scientific evidence. This book is shorter and relatively easy to read. It is a mixture of autobiography and apologetics from someone who was helped by science towards theism but never made the step toward Christianity. Second, I know it is a little dated, but I would suggest Darwin on Trial as a step towards having a more balanced opinion on evolution, especially if evolution would be the hang-up for you towards coming to faith in Christ. Johnson is a Christian, but he does not subscribe to a young-earth view, and he does not even argue for creationism in this book. Instead, it is primarily a polemic against evolution as widely understood, poking holes and asking some questions that Darwinists would not much want to have asked. (The link I have provided actually appears to be updated; it is merely my own edition that is dated.) There are other books and literature on intelligent design that I could mention, but Darwin on Trial would be a good starting place for those interested in that vein of thinking. Some of the other books are very technical, and it is easy to get bogged down in the science, as if I am missing a lot of prerequisite classes to truly understand what is being argued. Finally, in this scientific vein I would like to suggest The Language of God by Francis Collins. I read it a long time ago, and I don't think my views on things would line up exactly with him, but it is interesting, and Collins is the head of the Human Genome Project. This book is part autobiographical as well, and Collins surveys several different options for the way that science and faith may relate. (As a note, I may say that all three of these books are shorter and probably easier to read. For something meatier to digest, and on my personal wish list is Where the Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga.)
A great question to ask is whether the Bible is reliable, whether it is true. Certainly the books on resurrection above will deal with the question. But there are some good books that center specifically on this. The most concise and most widely read would probably be The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by FF Bruce. This book is barely over a hundred pages, but it gives a good answer to this question, and this would be the first place I would direct people. Another book, longer but in the same vein, would be The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is an important and newer book on the role of eyewitness testimony in the Gospels. I also read a newer book before Christmas this year called Reinventing Jesus which dealt with the issues of how Christianity arose and how the documents would have been passed along. Issues of corruption in transmission have recently been raised by guys like Bart Ehrman, and I think this provides some good common sense answers to the issues he is raising. Admittedly, I have read somewhat narrowly in this area because I have not read as much on the reliability of the Old Testament. But I think that the New Testament builds on and takes the Old Testament to be true. If the New Testament is true, Jesus' trusting and referencing and fulfilling the Old Testament would imply the truth of the Old Testament. Therefore, I think it is sufficient, at least for my own faith, to have good reasons for relying on the New Testament. A very good book on the issue of whether we have the right New Testament would be Canon Revisited, although it is very clear that it asks this question from the perspective of the Christian. Does a Christian have warrant for believing that we have the right books? He answers yes. Maybe not the best place to start, but a very interesting read. I have also heard that Inspiration and Authority of the Bible by BB Warfield is a classic and a solid defense of the Bible; it is a little longer. I have not ready any of them, but I would also personally be interested in obtaining and reading something on archaeology and the Bible: The Stones Cry Out or The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament or On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Plenty to chew on here, but probably best to start with Bruce and move on from there.
Most of the books I have referenced would seek to cover some very specific ground, whether science or the resurrection or some particular aspect of the reliability of the Bible. But there is also a place for a more big-picture overview. Classical apologetics - there are different schools of thought on apologetics - would first argue for theism in general, then for Christianity in particular. I would commend two books that are overview books but that are not aimed at making a bestseller list. The Reason for God by Tim Keller would probably be an easier read in this vein, but for a more in depth look I would recommend Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig and Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler. Both of these books seek to deal in a very detailed way with nearly all of the major issues in showing whether Christianity is true. Craig's book spends two meaty chapters in the middle on arguments for the existence of God, which provides the type of argumentation he uses in debate, but in much greater detail. Geisler's book does a survey of different philosophies and ways of knowing, critiquing along the way and commending theism. Again, very detailed overview. I have not made it all the way through either of these books, but I have benefited from portions out of each of them. Geisler and Craig both have written a lot of other books, some popular, some scholarly, but these are probably their two most foundational books to the rest of what they write. If you are a glutton for punishment or if you want an even greater level of detail, I would first recommend Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by Craig and Moreland. This book widens the scope from merely making an apologetics argument to looking at the foundation that Christianity provides for looking at nearly every imaginable question. Craig and many of today's Christian philosophers and apologists have benefited from influence by a man named Alvin Plantinga who helped to bring God back into the philosophical conversation in the 1970's. He has written a number of books, but the one I have and intend to read is Warranted Christian Belief. He deals at length with the issue of when a person may be said to have warrant for a belief and additionally whether the Christian is warranted in his religious belief. A popular level digest of Plantinga's thought may be found in A Shot of Faith to the Head by Mitch Stokes. I read this book in a single day and enjoyed it immensely. It is much easier to read than Plantinga's tome. Another suggestion on the way out of this paragraph - Knowing Christ Today by Dallas Willard.
(It would appear that I write very long paragraphs and that I failed in epic fashion to contain this to five or six suggestions.)
Let me land this plane... I want to finish with three book suggestions that I might classify as classics of apologetics in the 20th century. CS Lewis is probably the most famous apologist of the 20th century, and he wrote a number of books in a number of genres. He wrote Miracles, The Abolition of Man, and the Problem of Pain. All of these deal with some aspect of apologetics. But my all-time favorite suggestion to make from Lewis would be Mere Christianity. This book has probably had more influence on me and the way I think than any other book outside the Bible. I have read it at least three times. I highly recommend it. In it Lewis gives a fresh look at what Christianity really is at its heart and why we should believe it. I find it to be compelling. He does not wade into all the details of all the potential rabbit trails that some of my listed books might, but he puts the big-picture together for me in a way that grabs my heart as well as my head. One of the reading influences in Lewis' conversion - he was an atheist until later into his career as an English professor - was a man named GK Chesterton. The book of Chesterton that I have enjoyed the most would be Orthodoxy. Again, this is one of those big-picture books, but I recommend it because it literally makes me laugh out loud. It is probably the only book that consistently makes me do that. I find Chesterton to be hilarious, sarcastic, and incisive about ultimate matters. A third suggestion would be The God Who Is There by Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer is valuable in detailing the history of Western thought to show how we have arrived culturally, socially, religiously at our current location in history, and he is valuable in helping to push people to see the inconsistencies within their own worldviews. He helps us to be disciplined to see the logical effects of our presuppositions.
I hope that this list is helpful. I extend the invitation to anyone who is not a Christian but would like to read and discuss with me - please select one of these books and I will purchase it for you and work through it with you. I believe Christianity is true, and I believe that it is important, and I believe that I ought to share it. Thank you for your consideration and time spent reading this. Have a great evening!
Sunday, July 14, 2013
The Volume Dial on My Radio and Its Implications...
I turned the radio on by turning the knob. Before I could do anything, my ears hurt from the audio blast. I looked at the volume. It was on about level 4, but it sounded like it was on level 20. I turned it back off. Then I flipped it on level 1. It sounded clear and loud as day. A jump to level 1 and level 2 sounded normal...
I must have done something to it, and I don't know what.
It stayed that way for a couple of weeks.
Then today, inexplicably, it was fixed. I didn't do anything in particular to it, but now I needed to put it back on level 8 or level 10 for it to sound normal and comfortable. It went back to the way it always was. I don't know why.
So for two weeks - and I don't know why - my dial meant something different, it worked differently.
Now my question is this: why don't the constants of the universe do this? And maybe a second question: why do we expect them not to do this?
What I mean is... why wouldn't the force of gravity work with three times as much strength tomorrow as it did today? Why wouldn't the attractive forces in the nucleus of an atom be a little bit different when I go to bed tonight? Why shouldn't the boiling point of water rise five degrees next week? My list could go on with any number of different questions...
Now my point is this: to do science we presuppose an order to the universe. We presuppose that my experiment should work in a lab in New York just as well as London if I can replicate the conditions. We presuppose that my experiment should work the same tomorrow as it did today. We presuppose the universal power and constancy of the law of gravity. The next time I walk outside, I expect that I won't float off into the atmosphere. I expect to weigh about the same...
If I didn't expect these sorts of things, if I didn't expect the universe to work orderly and according to law, science wouldn't make much sense. What is science if it is not trying to discover these laws and principles and underlying truths about our world? How could science get going and make sense if it didn't think that order was actually there to be found and examined and explained?
Why should I expect tomorrow to be the same as today? Well, today was the same as yesterday...
This is the principle of induction. We observe patterns, and we make hypotheses and draw conclusions. Inference works. It gives us insight into the way the world works. It is the way we do science. It is the way we do history. It is the way we must practically live our lives. We observe patterns and we see what works. We trust in it as we move about and do things in our world.
But why should induction work? Why should induction give us insight into the way the world actually is? Again, how do I know that induction, which may have been valid from eternity past up until today will remain valid tomorrow? (How do I know that the laws of logic will still hold tomorrow?) I dare you to defend the inductive method without relying on induction in your explanation. I dare you to defend logic without using logic. (Everyone will find some circularity as they are defending their ultimate authority, their final resting point, their most basic basis for belief.)
...I think that theism provides a better explanation than atheism for why we should expect these things. If atheism is true, what reason is there to expect anything besides chaos and randomness? If atheism is true, what reason is there to expect the world to work according to laws? What reason is there to expect that we have minds that can investigate these laws? I know that we do expect these laws to work tomorrow, but why should we expect that? It would seem that if we do expect it, we are assigning both universality and eternality to physical laws, both attributes that might have traditionally been assigned to divinity.
The goodness, power, and plan of a Creator can account for natural laws governing the universe, and his faithfulness and consistency are displayed in the consistency of his laws. If God created the universe with order, it makes sense to believe that he will maintain that order. Because he is a God of law and order, and because we have been created as rational creatures in his image, we are warranted in concluding that induction makes sense and can give us true information about reality. God is at the bottom of the validity of induction as a method.
I think that the atheist must make a leap of faith to obtain the presuppositions necessary to do science or to make inductive inference. I think it is a leap of faith for the atheist to believe that tomorrow's world will not see all the cosmic dials go awry, that a world that is supposed to work according to chance will not go random in some rather unexpected ways...
I must have done something to it, and I don't know what.
It stayed that way for a couple of weeks.
Then today, inexplicably, it was fixed. I didn't do anything in particular to it, but now I needed to put it back on level 8 or level 10 for it to sound normal and comfortable. It went back to the way it always was. I don't know why.
So for two weeks - and I don't know why - my dial meant something different, it worked differently.
Now my question is this: why don't the constants of the universe do this? And maybe a second question: why do we expect them not to do this?
What I mean is... why wouldn't the force of gravity work with three times as much strength tomorrow as it did today? Why wouldn't the attractive forces in the nucleus of an atom be a little bit different when I go to bed tonight? Why shouldn't the boiling point of water rise five degrees next week? My list could go on with any number of different questions...
Now my point is this: to do science we presuppose an order to the universe. We presuppose that my experiment should work in a lab in New York just as well as London if I can replicate the conditions. We presuppose that my experiment should work the same tomorrow as it did today. We presuppose the universal power and constancy of the law of gravity. The next time I walk outside, I expect that I won't float off into the atmosphere. I expect to weigh about the same...
If I didn't expect these sorts of things, if I didn't expect the universe to work orderly and according to law, science wouldn't make much sense. What is science if it is not trying to discover these laws and principles and underlying truths about our world? How could science get going and make sense if it didn't think that order was actually there to be found and examined and explained?
Why should I expect tomorrow to be the same as today? Well, today was the same as yesterday...
This is the principle of induction. We observe patterns, and we make hypotheses and draw conclusions. Inference works. It gives us insight into the way the world works. It is the way we do science. It is the way we do history. It is the way we must practically live our lives. We observe patterns and we see what works. We trust in it as we move about and do things in our world.
But why should induction work? Why should induction give us insight into the way the world actually is? Again, how do I know that induction, which may have been valid from eternity past up until today will remain valid tomorrow? (How do I know that the laws of logic will still hold tomorrow?) I dare you to defend the inductive method without relying on induction in your explanation. I dare you to defend logic without using logic. (Everyone will find some circularity as they are defending their ultimate authority, their final resting point, their most basic basis for belief.)
...I think that theism provides a better explanation than atheism for why we should expect these things. If atheism is true, what reason is there to expect anything besides chaos and randomness? If atheism is true, what reason is there to expect the world to work according to laws? What reason is there to expect that we have minds that can investigate these laws? I know that we do expect these laws to work tomorrow, but why should we expect that? It would seem that if we do expect it, we are assigning both universality and eternality to physical laws, both attributes that might have traditionally been assigned to divinity.
The goodness, power, and plan of a Creator can account for natural laws governing the universe, and his faithfulness and consistency are displayed in the consistency of his laws. If God created the universe with order, it makes sense to believe that he will maintain that order. Because he is a God of law and order, and because we have been created as rational creatures in his image, we are warranted in concluding that induction makes sense and can give us true information about reality. God is at the bottom of the validity of induction as a method.
I think that the atheist must make a leap of faith to obtain the presuppositions necessary to do science or to make inductive inference. I think it is a leap of faith for the atheist to believe that tomorrow's world will not see all the cosmic dials go awry, that a world that is supposed to work according to chance will not go random in some rather unexpected ways...
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Two Thoughts on Noah
#1 -
Tonight I began reading through Genesis again. I came once again to the story of Noah. This is not a kid's story. It is about the destruction of all flesh because of the evil of humanity.
God saved a remnant. Noah was found to be a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah and his family alone survived. Untold numbers, including many, many animals perished.
To me, this is a reminder of our need to share the Gospel. This is a reminder of the sinfulness of man. This is a reminder that God's wrath is real. This is a reminder that I deserve destruction. This is a reminder that God has provided a way. This is a reminder that God's way is the only way.
Could God really mean it that Jesus is the only way to the Father and that all other ways lead to death...? Could God really have meant that everyone was going to perish except Noah and his family?
#2 -
In reading Genesis, I am comforted by the genealogies. I am comforted by the detailed lists of years of how long people lived. I am comforted by the specificity of detail about dates for when things happened in regards to the flood.
This - like the Gospels - are told in such a straightforward fashion, without any evident literary flourishes, and it is so earthy, so linked to details that we find no theological use for, other than they happened to note them. I am not one of those people who look into the Bible and expect to find some secret code or secret messages hidden within layers of meaning. I think God wants to communicate truth, that he is able to, and that he has created us with the ability to receive truth. Will we continue learning? Will we exhaust the Bible's treasures in our lifetime? Not likely! But the digging we must do is not a gnostic kind of digging.
It seems so plain to me that the genre here is history, and if I take seriously what the text presents me with, I am presented with a sovereign God of holiness and love. My faith drinks in the fact that the God presented in the Scriptures is powerful enough to bring me the Scriptures as he wants to. The Holy Spirit does a confirming work in my heart.
And he does it in genealogies of all places! How awesome! And it is precisely because I couldn't throw them into a pot and boil up a theological argument that I like them. They contain an air of mystery, but not one that flies into myth, one that humbly sinks its roots into the earthy ground of real people who just wanted to keep a family history.
As I read some of the details about Noah, I can easily imagine that Noah may have recorded some things, knowing that he and his family were the only link to a prior humanity. I can imagine these records being passed on to people and God bringing these records into Moses' hands as God inspired the writing of the Pentateuch.
I think basically I am just in a mood right now in which I am thankful for the Scriptures, and I want to spread that feeling around. What a treasure!
Tonight I began reading through Genesis again. I came once again to the story of Noah. This is not a kid's story. It is about the destruction of all flesh because of the evil of humanity.
God saved a remnant. Noah was found to be a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah and his family alone survived. Untold numbers, including many, many animals perished.
To me, this is a reminder of our need to share the Gospel. This is a reminder of the sinfulness of man. This is a reminder that God's wrath is real. This is a reminder that I deserve destruction. This is a reminder that God has provided a way. This is a reminder that God's way is the only way.
Could God really mean it that Jesus is the only way to the Father and that all other ways lead to death...? Could God really have meant that everyone was going to perish except Noah and his family?
#2 -
In reading Genesis, I am comforted by the genealogies. I am comforted by the detailed lists of years of how long people lived. I am comforted by the specificity of detail about dates for when things happened in regards to the flood.
This - like the Gospels - are told in such a straightforward fashion, without any evident literary flourishes, and it is so earthy, so linked to details that we find no theological use for, other than they happened to note them. I am not one of those people who look into the Bible and expect to find some secret code or secret messages hidden within layers of meaning. I think God wants to communicate truth, that he is able to, and that he has created us with the ability to receive truth. Will we continue learning? Will we exhaust the Bible's treasures in our lifetime? Not likely! But the digging we must do is not a gnostic kind of digging.
It seems so plain to me that the genre here is history, and if I take seriously what the text presents me with, I am presented with a sovereign God of holiness and love. My faith drinks in the fact that the God presented in the Scriptures is powerful enough to bring me the Scriptures as he wants to. The Holy Spirit does a confirming work in my heart.
And he does it in genealogies of all places! How awesome! And it is precisely because I couldn't throw them into a pot and boil up a theological argument that I like them. They contain an air of mystery, but not one that flies into myth, one that humbly sinks its roots into the earthy ground of real people who just wanted to keep a family history.
As I read some of the details about Noah, I can easily imagine that Noah may have recorded some things, knowing that he and his family were the only link to a prior humanity. I can imagine these records being passed on to people and God bringing these records into Moses' hands as God inspired the writing of the Pentateuch.
I think basically I am just in a mood right now in which I am thankful for the Scriptures, and I want to spread that feeling around. What a treasure!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)