Evaluation As Judgment

February 2, 2018

Year 3, Day 33 | No Comments

Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

Can Hell be redeemed? Judgment (ultimate evaluation) is not a privilege or obligation for mankind. We haven’t the necessary omniscience (knowledge), omnipotence (power), virtue (holiness), objectivity (truth), and whatever else is necessary to make even just determinations in the confines of nature. How would we have any claim to be able to determine the meaning of hell, of God’s evaluations (judgments) for what is meaning outside of time and physical substance that we lump together as nature? Scripture informs the reader that there is a place called hell, that it is a place that God has reserved for conscious beings he will not accept in his kingdom. The place of hell is noted as lasting in the eternal perception, as… Read more

Prayers That Sustain

January 22, 2018

Year 3, Day 22 | No Comments

Scripture repeats the phrase a time of trouble several times. It is a phrase deserving of study by the serious student, so to give some idea about how the world (nature) is managed by God, and the adjustments made by devout persons to the inevitable times of trouble. The concept relates to times in various eras offering some insight relative to the end of all things – a final time of trouble. When discussing this theme, and to escape the accusation of fantasy or religiosity, one remembers that both secular and religious sources predict the end of nature as we know it. There are various secular scenarios to describe it from the clash of meteorites; the exhaustion of energy, especially… Read more

Addiction

January 20, 2018

Year 3, Day 20 | No Comments

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

A free society is the only society in which persons can get to know themselves – to the degree anyone may know personal self. Freedom relieves us from some external distractions (like oppressive governments), but we may create our own distractions so as to mute our freedom. Escape from external restricting influences does not mean freedom is gained if the individual provides various substitutes for self-defeat that distorts a life meant to find balance (golden mean). The complications of life are such that we will never know, during the earth sojourn, what comprises all of the life we live. Life is one, characterized on earth as generated from life, through birth, to a maturation process and goal perceived in growing… Read more

Debate and Faith

January 11, 2018

Year 3, Day 11 | No Comments

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

In my recent reading I have sometimes felt barraged by contradictions, paradoxes, disagreements, variant conclusions all garnered through the same evidence. In the reports of a number of experiments and field studies I am informed that the archaeological evidence is not complete enough to decide who burned Hebron, as noted in the Book of Joshua. One editor does not presuppose God at work in any of the studies. The impression is that of humanism. The preponderance of authors support the burning by the invading Israelites under Joshua in natural course. Other serious scholars in the field offer this cause, or another, and so the saga continues. A book by an eminent scholar relates the differences in those students believing the… Read more

Gifting

December 23, 2017

Year 2, Day 357 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

We do not understand God in his relationship with mankind without an understanding of gifting. To help clarify the point we may take the relationship of a person with a pet dog. There is no way that the master can communicate to satisfaction in the two contexts, canine and human, that would make the relationship ideal. Nor can the dog gain access to the master for that he might like to know and understand fully about what the master expects of him. There are some things clear enough, as a stop sign is clear to a driver, or a dark cloud may mean impending storm. These responses are seldom related to reflective experiences even though they are learned. They become… Read more

Facts In Nature

December 19, 2017

Year 2, Day 353 | No Comments

In nature, with its common grace from God, the sophisticated population has been rightly convinced leading to beliefs and action with proofs related to replication of methods and evidence – for truth related to nature. For life, order, progress, truth, understanding – get the facts, interpret them and live by the results. There is no doubt that the consequences of that scenario have served mankind better than any alternative that preceded it – when various follies including voodoo, mythology, guessing, dreaming, magic, tribal customs that include fetishes and the like, even nothing (nihilism), held sway. Christian missionaries in some parts of the world continue to encounter some ancient customs and practices amounting to fancifulness that not only enslaves infected populations… Read more

Practicing Hospitality

December 5, 2017

Year 2, Day 339 | No Comments

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

Scripture has something to say about world hospitality. That is to say that strangers are treated as neighbors (not unlike extended family) to be included in our experience with grace and respect. Hospitality is a way of social life for all peoples. The loss of it has led to all sorts of nonsense, including warfare. International meetings are reported in the media with members of delegations shaking hands, posing for photographers in respectful combinations, and expressing good will. In the meantime there may be little done to address the issues that belong to grace, in the acceptance of each other. Acceptance does not mean approval, just as unconditional love does not approve ill conduct in the loved. Even nations, need… Read more

Conflicting Truths

November 17, 2017

Year 2, Day 321 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

A student works with at least two common types of materials in a reading regimen. The stern writings relate to what might be called research descriptions, from presuppositions to conclusions. Based on, and appreciated, the recording is taken as highly authoritative in the veracity (genuineness) of the author to represent some research of measurable facts leading to a conclusion. This is often referred to as scientific. It is so, if the rules are followed. The other materials may be designated as general. They begin with the creativity of a searcher/thinker, and are enhanced by the applications of activist/communicators who learn how to advance frontiers. The better the style of language the greater is the impact upon the reader, and, perhaps… Read more

Spiritualizing

November 8, 2017

Year 2, Day 312 | No Comments

God is not in the business of testing our credulity. That is the hobby of fanciful human beings, acting on shreds of information to prognosticate the future in this way or that way, and to conclude with a scenario that might be possible – in the belief that with God, all things are possible. The problem, of course, is that God does not do all things, even though he could if he would. He does only that he determines to do. He does not do all that he is capable of doing. Mankind is not positioned to cope with all that perfection. God is not contradictory, but adapts to the situations mankind creates, as a parent may adapt to the… Read more

Scholarship

November 7, 2017

Year 2, Day 311 | No Comments

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

Scholarship is to be analyzed in competing contexts. It is a search for truth, and is most supported in the scientific context when there is hard (agreed upon) natural evidence verifying conclusions. It is presumed to be most honored when it uncovers information, or offers something that hitherto has not been found or recognized. It presumes that the researcher is intrepid, in that he/she has been painstaking to find evidence, to verify hypotheses, to justify ultimate firm observations, suggesting belief and action. Candidates for Ph. D. degrees are often asked what they found in their research that added to the store of knowledge. Hopefully there is something more than the already-known information of what has gone before. This is not… Read more

Category Archive: Faith