Satan and Angels

October 31, 2018

Year 3, Day 304 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

The accents of Halloween, as practiced in America at the time of this writing, offers opportunity for me to accent the theology of Satan, both in his person and in his place in the cosmos. Literature about Satan, the chief of devils and sometimes called a devil, seems not to have made great conscious impact upon the general society. More than 90% respondents say they believe in God. Less than 50 % say they believe in a person known as Satan or Devil. The Devil, whose work seems so obvious to biblical Christians receives considerably less acknowledgment than God receives. We may accept that persons who believe in an omnipotent God would not believe in a Satan, evil as Satan… Read more

Individuality

October 30, 2018

Year 3, Day 303 | No Comments

Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Artists of the Western World have had on-again/off-again experience with Christianity. The authors of great literature belong to the list as artists of language to elevated thought and conduct. Some did give us art about the divine. This is true for sacred music as in The Messiah by Handel, in Sculpture like David or The Pieta, in painting seen in the various renditions of Christ’s Crucifixion and other scenes. I have a very striking copy of the Crucifixion as rendered by one of my nieces. It is meaningful to me in that it represents an event highly meaningful to me, very well cast, and she is the author of a rendition with the implications of the event. Not only is… Read more

History

October 29, 2018

Year 3, Day 302 | No Comments

Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

A favored area for Christian apologists is history. Christian theologians prefer a biblical logic which has its base in history and the nature of God. These are, for strict scientists (holding nature’s boundaries for their methodology), too unwieldy to carry the point, for faith in God. Spiritual conclusions do not emerge from controlled experiments. If the presupposition holds that the scientific method only, working with the elements of nature, provide the exclusive way to truth then the person of faith and the person of controlled and strictly replicated study are passing each other in the night. Both work with mystery, but the strict scientific person has an attractive benefit in the limitations of nature. It is easier to unlock nature’s… Read more

Ordinary People

October 28, 2018

Year 3, Day 301 | No Comments

Published history doesn’t give us a balanced report about the ordinary folks of the generations – and these are the masses that live during any era. We know most about the rich, powerful, educated and creative men and women. We know a bit about the movement of armies, the destructive forces of civil life including great movements of nature, economics, and other massive influences like emigrations, but little how these and those families functioned. Statistics are helping the story. Sometimes stories are made up, or reported in such a way that there occurs significant distortion in the reports and beliefs. We talk, for example, about the Wild West. The chances (statistics) of being murdered in New York City during the… Read more

Reality

October 27, 2018

Year 3, Day 300 | No Comments

Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

In a letter to Schrodinger in 1935, Albert Einstein wrote: The real difficulty lies in the fact that physics is a kind of metaphysics: physics describes “reality.” But we do not know what “reality” is, we know it only by means of the physical description. Jonathan Edwards wrote: To find out the reason of things in natural philosophy is only to find out the proportion of God’s acting. (Walter Schultz – Philosophia Christi. Vol. 11, No. 2 2009) We like to believe that we are on solid ground for belief and action when we have the feeling of assurance that we are dealing with reality, but we may not have enough information to determine reality in the larger context of… Read more

Mystery

October 26, 2018

Year 3, Day 299 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

The most ordinary person is visited with mystery, both natural and supernatural. Many pass by the supernatural by simply dropping off the concept of anything personal in the divine, or simply ignore its exploration. Others take it on, even if denial threatens them in the engagement. On the human side, the factor seems to visit many human beings, and becomes a gift or a curse as the individual may manage it. This becomes clear to readers of biography. How in the world could some of the experiences happen? Why do some persons manage the ups and downs, the occurrences and tensions, the insecurities and the rewards? The way to dreams, for many persons, is paved with barbed wire, high barriers,… Read more

Prayer Topics

October 25, 2018

Year 3, Day 298 | No Comments

Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

During the first years of my Christian experience friends would refer to their prayer lists. It has been some time since I have heard the list reference repeated. I would sometimes make a prayer list, but found that I am of such a nature that making the list seemed to take too much time that could be devoted to prayer. I should have discovered that in making the list I was in prayer for that I was writing about. God can read as well as listen, and gives attention to written prayers as oral ones, if both are moved along in faith related to God’s instructions we find in Scripture – related to the desires of the heart. I have… Read more

Beginning Again

October 24, 2018

Year 3, Day 297 | No Comments

It is clear from Scripture that there was tension between faith and science contexts long before modern scientific theories and consequent conclusions became central in the pursuit of knowledge. Sophisticated ancients tended to believe in both special mankind and divine gods. The gods were somewhat humanized except for their miracle-working powers. Gods were formed like nature-persons rather than mankind striving to be like god-persons. God-related messages were formed from the idealism of leaders, but the concept of revelation informing mankind of what God is like emerged with the patriarchs of Israel, and given form on first written revelation in the work of Moses. Revelation replaced tradition for authority. God appears to have managed the changes well. (Acts 17:30) The growth… Read more

Irrepressible Conflicts

October 23, 2018

Year 3, Day 296 | No Comments

Susan Gregory Thomas wrote the story of her experience in approaching marriage, family, division, and divorce – in her book: In Spite of Everything: A Memoir. She recited the deplorable situation for her and her brother after the divorce of her parents, especially their decline into drugs, and rebellion. Her brother died from the excesses at about thirty years of age. The story is dismal and tragic. She was determined to have a solid marriage, and to care for her children in a way that was denied to her in her childhood years. She documented the significant differences between the times of her childhood and that of her children. The differences were dramatic, but the end was similar – divorce. … Read more

Faith and Trust

October 22, 2018

Year 3, Day 295 | No Comments

Is it impossible for mankind to please God (or man) without faith? Scripture is quite firm that our connection with God, if it is to be gained, must travel an invisible carrier wave he identifies as faith. At first blush it seems too simple – so simple that we may pass it off as an unworthy route to follow. Then to incorporate its meanings in a book we call The Bible, written by both gifted and ordinary persons, may seem a bit odd. Some believe that God should have given his message in a background of the northern lights, and become famous through pyrotechnics. The modern wailing entertainers become well known, rich, even counselors to the world by streaming words… Read more

Monthly Archives: October 2018