Democracy

July 15, 2019

Year 4, Day 196 | No Comments

Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

In our interpretation of life and thought/conduct in contexts related to God (spiritual) and mankind (natural) we return to concepts of government and respect. God will govern his kingdom even if in human logic nature rules mankind. At best, human government is under the direction of faulty persons, but competent to guide it. In a spirit of fairness the American Founding Fathers created a good plan for overcoming human frailty by forming a threefold system, and leaving the authority for initiation to the majority of the electorate. Plato accented doubt in an electorate, crediting the intellectuals as more competent, so to representative states. That belief held even by much of the peasantry likely lengthened the authority of royal heirs living… Read more

Death and Finality

June 28, 2019

Year 4, Day 179 | No Comments

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

This is a follow-up Page to June 24, in this Quarter. I noted there, in closing the first paragraph, the matter of Near Death Experience (NDEs) reviewed by Robert Gottlieb. He followed a spate of books on the subject, and followed up with still another article. This Page takes up on the second of the two articles, also prompted by a number of relevant book titles, some repeated appropriately from the first. It is obvious that he is reaching out for objectivity but admitting his inner personal skepticism. I acknowledge my orientation in a belief in life after death, based on faith in God prompted by the biblical account and the mercy of the Creator with some skepticism that evidence… Read more

Design and Destiny

June 5, 2019

Year 4, Day 156 | No Comments

Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

Regarding human life, mankind seems taken with its length, while God is most interested in its quality. For eternal God, time is a created factor so receives less concern for him than his functioning in the eternal context. We can be sure that God understands our necessary relationship with time, and accommodates us in that context. At the same time, we must accommodate God in the context of eternity. Perforce our secondary interest is in life quality because we perceive that quality has something to do with the length of life. That life quality is often disregarded is cause for decline in the intended length of human life. The length of life for human beings in the physical (animal) context… Read more

Church and church

May 23, 2019

Year 4, Day 143 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

In common, mankind lives in nature’s context. It is in the context of mortality, but there is a second context of immortality. Mortality’s life is ours by physical birth: immortality’s by choice (faith). For those persons following the affirmative choice for immortality (identified in the New Testament as Hope), mortality becomes nature’s womb period for immortal life, gained in spiritual birth (adoption). (Romans 8:23) The explanation is addressed in Scripture (Romans 8). The theme was the center of conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. (John 3) We may assume that Nicodemus accepted the meaning of Christ, as found in his later effort to gain a fair trial for Jesus, and his claim for the body of Jesus after the crucifixion. He… Read more

Church/Evidence/Nature

May 15, 2019

Year 4, Day 135 | No Comments

Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

Pope Francis was installed in his office in 2013. He was one of the favorites among the Cardinals in the election of the previous Pope, but did nothing but discourage his colleagues from electing him. He acquiesced on the next election, and began a popular and open pontificate that has gained world-wide attention and approval. His task is both simple and difficult. It requires a sweeping effort to change the leadership and procedures in the Vatican (the difficult part), and the declaration of humane concerns to solutions (the easy part). It is understood that the style that relates him closely to the common people (easy part even if fatiguing) does not necessarily mean that he will be successful (becoming difficult… Read more

Body/Soul/Spirit

May 8, 2019

Year 4, Day 128 | No Comments

This threefold identification of the nature of mankind (body/soul/spirit) appears only once in the Bible (KJV) in these words and in this particular summary statement that captures the holistic nature of the human being. Jesus refers to the theme in different words, like mind and strength – in verses noted above. The body is physical which is to say animal, and houses the essence of the meaning of that life differentiated as vegetable and animal in the physical world with variant forms such as insect, fish, fowl, and forms rising in sophistication to vertebrates at the top of the various species. Life is given various contexts. The soul also takes its forms housed in higher and lowers forms in vertebrates… Read more

Holiness

May 2, 2019

Year 4, Day 122 | No Comments

Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

Scripture informs us that we are, to win heaven’s citizenship, so to be twice born. Both births have to do with the creative acts of God. We are God’s children in two meanings, one physical and the other spiritual. In the physical we can and do become truant to creation (natural) and to God (spiritual). We demand of nature more and/or differently than it can give without our full agreement and cooperation. Good people live in a disciplined context that makes the physical world a practical place, and on aggregate, increasing the length of life to the degree that nature’s laws permit – and are kept. Had Adam/Eve maintained that original ideal they likely would have, at some point in… Read more

Information

April 28, 2019

Year 4, Day 118 | No Comments

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

Intellectually we are both aided and crippled by the advances of this information age. There has never been so much information revealing truth useful for effective knowledge and management as we have in current conditions. The matter is so extensive that it is commonly referred to as information overload. There is an old saying that there is a straw that breaks the camel’s back. The camel is loaded with material to be transported, so heavily that another straw will break his back, and all will be lost for current transport, and the life of the camel. Present developments in research and the mass of student/scholars at work in seeking something new to advance learnings in various fields have become so… Read more

Thermometers and Thermostats

April 24, 2019

Year 4, Day 114 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

What is a person to do? One group of analysts extols the improvements in society. Another deplores the conditions and predicts dire consequences. Clocks are pictorially set as advertisements for doomsday, moving at minutes and seconds before midnight that begins doomsday. How is the ordinary citizen to know where we really are in society and time dimension? Wise persons seek to know the alternative for what they have at the moment on the point at hand, because they know if it is from mankind it is in some way faulty and needs another dimension so to gain better insight and balance. Sometimes a bad point is measured against a bad point so the issue may be worsened, and the followers… Read more

Guideline

March 31, 2019

Year 4, Day 90 | No Comments

In Volume 3 of these Pages we reviewed some of the teaching method of the peripatetic philosopher, Socrates – teaching while walking around. Jesus held some parallels with Socrates. We know Jesus could read – skilled to find what he wanted to recite in an age before chapters and verses were formed. He did not write except for a few words or signs, perhaps doodles, in the sand, as prehistoric persons did on stones. His teachings were taught to his students, called disciples and later Apostles, and church Fathers after, accounting for introduction of variants and emphases of the Jesus message of mankind and theology. The history of Socratic teachings (humanistic) and Jesus teachings (theistic) becomes something of a light… Read more

Category Archive: Faith