The great problem with the future is that we die there. This is why it is so hard to take the future personally, especially the longer future, because that world is suffused with our absence.
~ Steward Brand, in The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility, page 150

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.
~ Albert Camus

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.
~ Albert Einstein

Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
~ Euripides

That Being, who gave me existence, and through almost threescore years has been continually showering his favors upon me, whose very chastisements have been blessings to me ; can I doubt that he loves me? And, if he loves me, can I doubt that he will go on to take care of me, not only here but hereafter? This to some may seem presumption ; to me it appears the best grounded hope ; hope of the future built on experience of the past.
~ Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to George Whitefield 19 June 1764, published in The Works of Benjamin Franklin

Hold fast to the Bible. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future.
~ Ulysses S. Grant

In the face of all terror and uncertainty and illusion about the future we gladly point to Jesus and say that he is the future.
~ Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- Alan Kay

The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.
~ Gerda Lerner

Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.
~ Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Herndon’s Life of Lincoln by William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik (New York, Da Capo Press, 1983), p. 354.

Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
~ Machiavelli

We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government. Far from it. We have staked the future on the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, control ourselves, and to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.
~ James Madison

If you want to predict the future of our land, go to school and look around.
~Richard Mitchell, in The Graves of Academe

The stupid speak of the past, the wise of the present, fools of the future.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Man is unable to accurately predict events which are but twenty-four hours distant; only the Divine Mind could have foretold the future, centuries before it came to be. Hence, we affirm with the utmost confidence, that the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies in the Bible attest and demonstrate the truth that the Scriptures are the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God.
~ A.W. Pink

To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes, the wise and the good learn wisdom for the future.
~ Plutarch

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
~ George Bernard Shaw

When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past.
~ Wislawa Szymborska.

Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.
~ Alvin Toffler

“At some point in his life
there came a shortage
of future”
~ Steve Turner, from the poem “Aging” in Tonight We Will Fake Love

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.
~ Desmond Tutu

No one is less ready for tomorrow than the person who holds the most rigid beliefs about what tomorrow will contain.
~ Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor and Howard Means, Visionary’s Handbook : Nine Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business

In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.
~ Andy Warhol

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
~ Oscar Wilde

Don’t let the mistakes and disappointments of the past control and direct your future.
~ Zig Ziglar

The future just isn’t what it used to be.
~ Unknown

A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
~ Honore de Balzac

A question for you to dwell upon tonight: are you a free spirit? Nietzsche argued that the greatest human beings were free spirits—those rare individuals who transcend mankind, who break free from the shackles of value systems, who no longer follow the herd, who fully embrace what it is to be human (all too human), creating their own values and making their own meaning; rising above what their culture or religion has determined to be right and wrong or beautiful. Does this sound like the type of person you strive to be?

People often tell me that they desire freedom from the constraints of organized religion or from puritanical moral systems, which they believe bring about oppression and unnecessary limitations upon mankind. Some perceive that religion imposes overwhelming intellectual limitations—that is, they believe that religion stunts their intellectual growth or somehow disengages their rational faculties. They want the freedom to believe whatever they deem to be true. Others perceive that religion brings about suffocating ethical limitations—they want sexual liberation, they want to lie and cheat and steal from time to time without feeling guilty about it.

Perhaps the most common form of freedom that people speak about is the freedom to make meaning. Have you ever heard someone say, “life is what you make of it” or “my life has meaning because I make it meaningful”? Statements like these illustrate the type of freedom that I’m referring to. It’s the idea that we have the freedom to make meaning for our lives apart from any standard or universal meaning which applies to everyone. We see this in art as well. There’s no longer a standard for what qualifies as art—art is simply an expression of someone’s inner feelings or emotions. Thus, anything can be art. A jar of urine is art if you feel that it is and attribute to it some form of meaning. There is a real resistance among modern artists to placing any definition, label, or limitations on art. There is a desire for freedom—an unlimited freedom to express whatever one wants however one wants to express it (whether that be through urine in a jar or oil on canvas). There is also a tremendous resistance to the idea that beauty is objective—that something can truly be said to be beautiful. We want the freedom to make that determination for ourselves.

I wonder, however, if Nietzsche’s free spirit is truly free? I wonder if those of us who strive for this type of freedom are actually placing ourselves into bondage? What if, in our desire to be free spirits, we have actually enslaved ourselves to one of the most tyrannical and destructive dictators of all? The dictator to which I refer is of course self love. By self love I do not mean having a healthy self image (something we all should have); rather, I mean the placing of our pleasures and our needs as the very end of (i.e. the purpose of) our existence. When we direct our lives in accordance with our unbridled passions; when we make decisions solely based upon what is beneficial to our own wellbeing or to what brings us the most pleasure or satisfaction–this is self love. Self love is all about fulfilling any sexual urge or fantasy we might have, expressing ourselves in any way we want (without recourse to the good, the noble, or the beautiful), and about living life to feed the ego. The free spirit, in her desire to break free from values, from universals, from absolutes, ends up in bondage to her own arbitrary emotions; to her own ego. Rather than being a rational human being, the free spirit is more akin to a horse following a carrot on a stick—wherever the carrot goes the horse goes.

A free spirit, enslaved to self love, ultimately brings bondage and enslavement to others as well. In the eyes of the free spirit, people become simply a means to an end—objects to be used for personal gain. This happens whether the free spirit is aware of it or not. For example, you begin to think–perhaps only in your subconscious–of your girlfriend as a sex object; of course she is a person, but in practice she is nothing but a means to satiating whatever sexual desires you might have. She, in turn, is obligated to fulfill your sexual desires no matter how uncomfortable or dirty it might make her feel if she wants to keep you. You degrade her (maybe you don’t even think of it this way); you reduce her to a mere tool for masturbation and whether you realize it or not, she has become your slave. But, perhaps, she has enslaved you too. Perhaps she knows–even subconsciously–she can get something she wants out of you (money, power, respect, companionship . . .) if she gives you the sex that you want? In this case, you are ultimately her slave–not unlike the lab rat that won’t stop pressing the button which gives it sexual stimulation (to the exclusion of the button which dispenses food) and, in the end, dies of starvation.

St. Paul spoke of this type of self love in his second letter to Timothy:

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self,       lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (II Timothy 3:1-4)

This type of self love, which is the root of all sin, leaves us in bondage. We become slaves to sin–slaves to our unbridled passions, slaves to our ego, and slaves to each other. The freedom that we so long for turns out to be nothing but an illusion.

Freedom, true freedom, can only come through Christ. Jesus not only brings us forgiveness for the pain and suffering and oppression we bring into the world, but offers us an escape from the tyranny of self love. Jesus gives us the freedom to love what is truly beautiful and truly good–the Creator and sustainer of life Himself; and to love others who have been made in His image. This, in fact, is the essence of Christianity: to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).

The follower of Christ, imaging God Himself, makes love the end or, the purpose, of his existence. By love I do not mean some fluffy sentimentality or warm sensation that one experiences in his stomach. I mean the act of sacrifice–of self giving. St. John said: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Later he states: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). God is love, not in some abstract way, but his very nature is love. Within the blessed Trinity we see the existence of three persons, joined together by nature and eternally pouring out themselves, sharing themselves, submitting themselves to each other. We see true love. In the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ we see this love, this self-giving, spilling out into creation–we see the Divine Logos humbling Himself, giving of Himself, even unto death. We see true love.

The true free spirit is the one who embraces this love, who breaks free from the chains of self love and into the liberating arms of self-giving. So, the question remains: are you a free spirit?

Half the lies people tell me aren’t true.

It ain’t over till it’s over.

It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.

Ninety-nine percent of this game is half mental.

No wonder nobody comes here–it’s too crowded.

You can see a lot by looking.

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Build me a son, oh Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one that will be proud and unbending in defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair

Let us suspend reality for just a moment and imagine that St. Athanasius has returned from the grave . . . and is desperately craving a cup of hot coffee.  After locating the nearest local coffee shop, he walks in with a huge smile on his face–having at last found a place to satisfy his craving.  To his great surprise, he discovers the imminent physicalists Jagewon Kim and Jeffery Poland sitting in the back of the shop enjoying their morning brew.  A dialog quickly ensues . . .

Athanasius: “Good morning gentlemen! Grace to you and peace from our heavenly Father who spoke all things into existence through His own eternal Logos, through which all things hold together harmoniously and in good order!”

Jeffery Poland: “Good god man, you can’t be serious! If you please, I’m attempting to enjoy a cup of coffee before my next lecture.

Athanasius: “My apologies my friend, but surely one can not help but extol the wonders of the Logos who holds all things together!”

Jaegwon Kim: “You’re somewhat of an odd fellow. Are you not aware that what holds all things together are the fundamental laws of physics? My dear friend, there is no God. For, all things that exist in this world are bits of matter and structures aggregated out of bits of matter, all behaving in accordance with laws of physics . . . any phenomenon of the world can be physically explained if it can be explained at all. (1) So, enough of this nonsense about a divine logos.”

Athanasius: “I see. But, if you will, please explain to me the nature of these laws. Are the laws of physics themselves physical?

Jaegwon Kim: “Do we not experience them in the physical world? For all the things we experience are physical. Is this not obvious?

Athanasius: “Obvious indeed. So what you are saying is that the fundamental laws of physics . . . are the fundamental laws of physics?

Jaegwon Kim: “No, that would be circular reasoning.”

Athanasius: “My dear friend, if your ontology is correct then the only possible answer to the question of the nature of the laws of physics is that they are ultimately bits of matter and structures aggregated out of bits of matter all behaving in accordance with the laws of physics. For, as you say, “any phenomenon of the world can be physically explained if it can be explained at all.”

Jaegwon Kim: “Yes, I did say that.  But  . . . “

Jeffery Poland: “I didn’t want to get involved in this discussion, but I can hardly sit quietly any longer!  The relevant point here is that physicalists are (or should be) concerned with what exists in nature: i.e. with what can be spatially and temporally related to us, with that with which we can interact and by which we can be influenced, and with that of which we and the things around us are made . . . sets, propositions, universals, and so on, when abstractly conceived, are not considered to be in nature at all. Nor are they within the scope of the physicalists domain of study. (2)  Hence, your argument is superfluous.”

Athanasius: “But Mr. Poland, do you not state in your writings that ‘everything that exists is either an element of the physical basis or is constituted by elements in that basis?” and do you not further assert that, ‘everything that exists is, in this sense, ‘ontologically grounded’ in the physical domain?” (3)

Jeffery Poland: “Well yes . . .”

Athanasius: “So, physicalism is committed to the belief that everything which exists is ultimately grounded in the physical domain?

Jeffery Poland: ” . . . yes.”

Athanasius: “Tell me, Mr. Poland, do the laws of physics exist?

Jeffery Poland: “Well, of course . . .”

Athanasius: “Clearly, then, the laws of physics fall within the explanatory scope of physicalism!”

Jeffery Poland: “But that would lead to a tautology.”

Athanasius:  ”Exactly!  And you’ve only two ways in which to avoid this tautology:  (1) you can accept that the laws of physics are nonphysical universal truths, or (2) you can reformulate physicalism as being a methodological doctrine rather than an ontological one.  Perhaps the notion of a divine logos is not so foolish after-all?”

(1) Kim, Jaegwon. Physicalism or Something Near Enough. New York: Princeton University Press, 2001. 149-150.

(2) Poland, Jeffrey. Physicalism:  The Philosophical Foundations. New York: Oxford, 1994. 228.

(3) Ibid. 18.

The entire reasoning behind Moriarty’s sentencing is, “Well, if I let her go I’ll have to let everyone else go.” The very few defenders of his decision typically say “the law is the law.” Both mentalities have absolutely no place in the American courtroom, yet both are so common that few question them. The idea of precedence (“if I let her go then everyone gets to go”) and legal positivism (“the law is the law”) are symptomatic of an authoritarian state, not of a judicial system focused on justice.

Now, aside from the allegations that Moriarty is in the pockets of corporations (which violates the code of ethics; let us pray he is disbarred), Moriarty is unfit to serve in his capacity as judge because he doesn’t understand the danger of ruling via precedence (or to establish precedence). Precedence doesn’t allow for unjust decisions to be overturned. While it’s important to have legal consistency, all decisions must still be evaluated as just or unjust. If previous judges have ruled that x is wrong, the current judge must still look at the current situation and determine whether or not x really is wrong. While he can refer back to the previous decisions, he must look at the current context to determine if those decisions apply to this circumstance or if those decisions were right to begin with (think of the legal precedence that secured segregation in the early 20th century).

With the above in mind, in this circumstance he could say that due to the circumstances of the girl the law wouldn’t apply. The intent of the law (or “spirit of the law”) was to prevent students from skipping school for petty reasons. The intent of the law was not to jail students because they’re worn out from holding their family together while obtaining top marks. Thus, while the law would apply to most other truants, it simply would not apply in this case. This doesn’t set any precedence other than “If you’re missing school because you’re working to support your family, we’re not going to put you in jail for being an incredible human being.”

But what of the legal positivist who says, “but the law is the law”? Legal positivism is a result of nominalism, which is the denial of universals and the focusing on particulars. If there are no universals then the society dictates what is and is not part of the law. Once the law is established the law is to be followed, no matter what. Now some legal positivists might say we can still disobey the law if we think the government is illegitimate or the law unjust, but this caveat undermines the entire thing; if we can determine justice without appealing to the established law or the government, then the law is not justified in and of itself (i.e. the law is not always the law, that is to say, the law is not always just and therefore must sometimes be broken).

If the “law is the law,” then Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, and other great champions of civil rights are the absolute worst human beings on earth. They violated the social norms. They went against the legal consensus. We ought to despise them for saying that society had it wrong. Of course, hardly anyone would make these arguments. Almost everyone would rightfully declare these people champions of justice. But the justice they pointed to had to exist outside of their own experience, that is, it had to be a universal (absolute) and not a particular (subjective).

If I am correct on the above, then in this case the girl should not have been punished. The “law is the law” doesn’t work; the law was unjustly applied and the law in and of itself is unjust. That it would allow a judge to punish high-performing students who are contributing to society means the law ought to be broken, challenged, and cast aside. No judge should enforce said law because the law is wrong; if Congress passed a law saying that all Muslims should be put in prison, then regular citizens and agents of the government would have the moral obligation to disobey the law. While a law geared towards jailing truants isn’t nearly as drastic as the example provided, it proves the point that some laws are unjust.

On a second point, the idea that we would jail students for choosing not to attend school is quite absurd. The purpose of the government is to (1) recognize the innate freedoms of all its citizens, (2) protect any outside threats from encroaching on those freedoms, (3) protect any domestic threats from encroaching on those freedoms, and (4) provide a society that is stable enough for those freedoms to flourish. Forcing students to attend school or face jail doesn’t fulfill any of those four categories; if anything, it violates both 1 and 3. By failing the attend school the student harms no one except himself; from a legal perspective (not a moral perspective), so long as his actions don’t harm anyone else, what business is it of the government’s (kind of like seatbelt laws)? Thus, not only was this law misapplied in this case, the law itself is flawed and unjust and should never be applied even in cases where the student misses school simply because he doesn’t want to go.

Ultimately, even within the parameters of the law, she should not be punished for what she did. There’s no reason she should have anything put on her record; what she has accomplished is nothing short of amazing and if she is keeping up top marks in her classes while missing school, she deserves an award, not jail time. However, so long as we teach this absurd philosophy of legal positivism in our law schools, so long as we adopt nominalism, we’re going to end up with more and more totalitarian laws. That’s just how it works; when you seek to deny reality you have to create a false reality, and the simulacrum will always be worse than the real.

So, for what would you die? Family? Friends? Your country? Freedom? Truth?

Once we admit that there are causes for which it would be appropriate to die, we acknowledge that there are things more important than life, and that death is not the greatest evil — that suffering and death can have great meaning and purpose. The question is often asked why a good God would allow suffering, the implication being that God must either be not good or not powerful enough to prevent it. No, that does not follow. That reasoning is specious. Once we acknowledge that there are things to be valued more greatly than life and comfort we can not put an all-knowing God into the dock. He can allow the unpleasant, for reasons that are meaningful and good.

The death of Jesus of Nazareth exhibits this reasoning. The murder of the only righteous man was a great evil, and yet the event is full of meaning and purpose. Jesus is our propitiation – He is our mercy seat.

I encourage you to think upon Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3 as an appropriate follow-up to the observance of our national Memorial Day.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.
~ Allan Bloom, in The Closing of the American Mind (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1987), page 25

Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.
~ William Cullen Bryant

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
~ Winston Churchill

The absolute truth is indestructible. Being eternal, it is self-existent. Being self-existent, it is infinite. Being infinite, it is vast and deep. Being vast and deep, it is transcendental and intelligent.
~ Confucius, in The Doctrine of the Mean

There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, the immutable truth is also dead and buried.
~ John Dewey

Follow not truth too near the heels, lest it dash out thy teeth.
~ George Herbert

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch. Nay, you may kick it about all day, and it will be round and full at evening.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Seek the truth
Listen to the truth
Teach the truth
Love the truth
Abide by the truth
And defend the truth
Unto death.
~ John Hus

Relativism, then is a position for which the world still awaits an argument. It is also self-defeating in the sense that every self-styled relativist is forced, sooner or later, to appeal to absolutes of his own making. And it is a theory that robs life of elements needed for any life to have meaning.
~ Ronald Nash, in The Closing of the American Heart, page 67

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
~ Isaac Newton

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
~ Flannery O’Connor

Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half full) of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). Emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the disciplines of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections from God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship.
~ John Piper, in Desiring God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1986), page 76

The truth is more important than the facts.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright

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RELATED

Master List of Great Quotes

It is impossible to use electrical light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles.
~ Rudolf Bultmann

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.
~ George Carlin

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts of his divinity.
~ Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Ezra Styles, March 9, 1790

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.
~ Sigmund Freud, in The Future of Illusion

I imagined that if a Christian had a brain cell, it would die of loneliness.
~ Josh McDowell, in More Than a Carpenter, talking about the way he thought prior to his conversion to Christianity.

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself that this thing called Christianity.
~ Thomas Paine, in The Age of Reason

A London lady sat next to Bertrand Russell at this party, and over the soup she suggested to him that he was not only the world’s most famous atheist but, by this time, very probably the world’s oldest atheist. “What will you do, Bertie, if it turns out you’re wrong?” she asked. “I mean, what if–uh–when the time comes, you should meet Him? What will you say?” Russell was delighted with the question. His bright, birdlike eyes grew even brighter as he contemplated this possible future dialogue, and then he pointed a finger upward and cried, “Why, I should say, ‘God, you gave us insufficient evidence.’”
~ Al Seckel, in the preface to Bertrand Russell on God and Religion

On Being Born Again

The trouble with born again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.
~Herb Caen

Born again?! No, I’m not. Excuse me for getting it right the first time.
~ Dennis Miller

Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope.
~ P. J. O’Rourke

Why do born-again people so often make you wish they’d never been born the first time?
~ Katherine Whitehorn

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• Index To Great Quotes

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If there is a wide gulf between your faith and feelings right now because of the hurt and pain you are feeling, that’s not hypocrisy—that’s honesty.
~ Joey O’Connor, in Heaven’s Not a Crying Place: Teaching Your Child About Funerals, Death, and the Life Beyond

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Hypocrisy desires to seem good rather than to be so; honesty desires to be good rather than seem so.
~ Arthur Warwick

Silence is a source of great strength.

To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, “We did it ourselves!”

What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.

1)  Does beauty truly exist?

2)  Perhaps beauty is merely a feeling; an inner subjective experience; my impression of a perception . . . an emotion.  Perhaps beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.  If this is the case, it is false to believe anything truly is beautiful.  When I look at the sunrise and exclaim in awe, “how beautiful!” I am merely expressing a feeling—I am communicating something private.  For the sunrise is not beautiful in any objective, concrete, sense; it is just an object within space and time.  Like all objects, it has no intrinsic value, no purpose, no meaning, it conforms to no pattern.  I, the observer, give it meaning . . .

3)  If beauty is simply a subjective experience, a feeling, then to speak of beauty is no different than to speak of indigestion.  In effect, the expression, “how beautiful,” is functionally equivalent to the expression, “my stomach hurts.”

4)   How wretched life would be if beauty did not exist!  I look at my wife, an angel, the radiance of the sun instantiated in human form . . . yet, this isn’t real.  The beauty of my wife is nothing but maya—an illusion.  In reality she is the endless shifting of atoms, the constant flux of matter and energy; as am I.  To say that my wife is beautiful is really to say that one shifting batch of atoms (my wife) collided with another shifting batch of atoms (my eyes) creating a chemical response in my brain and producing a particular emotion.  Her beauty is but one euphoric chemical reaction—an animal instinct, a sexual desire.

5)  In a world devoid of intrinsic value, beauty is degraded—it becomes something base.

6)   But surely beauty must exist!  Surely the sunrise is more than the endless shifting of atoms; more than the sense of awe engendered by a brute biochemical response to perception.  Surely such reactions occur in the presence of great beauty—a beauty woven into the very fabric of reality.  A form . . . an idea . . . a logos . . .

Regardless, they released their new album “Cynic’s New Year” (which, in my opinion, is their best album to date). On the album they have a song called “Last Waltz” that musically is brilliant, but the lyrics just stand out to me. Now, I don’t know what Justin Ringle (or whoever wrote the song) meant by the lyrics, but they make a point that I really want to stress. Here are those lyrics:

I’ve seen the end
All I have loved had broke and won’t mend.
Call in the doctor the day may have died.
There’s a thimble of light for an acre of sky.

Darling we play the dunce,
There’s changes ahead,
coming at once.
I don’t like to lie,
There’s a divorcing sea.
Where will we go if there’s nowhere to be?

Call in the Doctor and break the news,
We’re sick in the head, our hearts’ got the blues.
Where in the world, oh where is the sun?
There’s a blackness that’s bit, it’s bitings not done.

Darling we play the dunce,
There’s changes ahead,
coming at once.
I don’t like to lie,
There’s a divorcing sea.
Where will we go if there’s nowhere to be?

Old friends withering away,
Just like the cliffs found down by the bay.
I don’t like to lie it’s a terrible thing.
Time’s got a way to take more than it brings.

Before hitting that point, I should point out that I also just finished reading Nihilism by Fr. Seraphim Rose. In the book he points out how Nihilism removes the meaning from life by removing God. Whereas atheism is simply the statement that God does not exist, Nihilism seeks to destroy the idea of God wherever it is found, it actively tries to “kill God.” In doing so, all meaning is lost.

Thus, it’s probably no surprise that when I read the lyrics of Horse Feathers, I see modern man plastered all over them. I think of Nietzsche’s monologue in The Gay Science, where taking on the role of the madman, he writes: 

“Whither is God?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, foreward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?”

This is why the line “Where will we go if there’s no where to be” resonates so deeply with me. Modern man is a beast looking for a shelter on a stormy night, but he’s burned down the shelter. Where will he go? He will go nowhere, because what he hopes for no longer exists. In killing God, that is, in removing Him from our lives and ignoring Him, we have become planets without suns, drifting into an ever darker, colder, and emptier universe.

Songs like this remind me so much of what our sin has caused us. Sin is the act of rebelling against God and this rebellion begets nothing more than angst and despair. We wish to say that we create our own meaning, but this position simply is not tenable. Let me share a very real life example:

Today I saw a woman with a black eye that was obviously caused by a fist. She sat at a table in a restaurant with a man that I assume to be her husband or boyfriend. The man fit the stereotype of someone who would hit a woman. Upon closer inspection, I noticed  his hat said “Fourth Reich” on it and his arms were covered in White Supremacist tattoos.

If we follow nihilism to its logical end, if there really is no where to be, then who can condemn this man? He has created his own meaning for life and is following it. Now, some might say, “Well that’s absurd because…” but before they can finish their sentence, the madman cuts them off and says “life is nothing but absurd!” The critic must hang his head in shame. Only the more ignorant supporters of this nihilism will continue their objection, noting that we can find our own meaning so long as our meaning doesn’t harm anyone. The madman laughs as such naiveté, pointing out that they’re still attempting to attach themselves to a sun, they’re still trying to have a universal moral code. When we go through the decomposing of God, some will still seek out the absolute, but the true nihilist has buried God and moved past His decomposition; he needs no absolute. Thus, the idea that one wouldn’t harm another in seeking one’s meaning is laughable. The only reason a man wouldn’t seek to harm a woman is if it would in turn bring him harm.

When we cast ourselves away from God this is the world we end up with. Certainly we still have saintly atheists and criminal Christians, but in the grand scheme of things the universe is quite indifferent to it all (and Nietzsche would argue that there is no good or evil, there are no saints or criminals). The atheist hears the cries of a suffering child and rushes in to help her. The corrupt Christian hears the cries and says it’s not his problem. The universe hears her cries and doesn’t care either way. Where will we go when there’s no where to be? Who do we turn to other than ourselves when we encounter the realities of this apathetic universe? And no matter what our answer, what does it matter when in a few billion years the sun will expand and eviscerate our planet? Of course, our species will be long gone by that point, via evolution, asteroids, comets, the death of the planet, or nuclear war.

I think to the man I saw who obviously beat his wife. When she cries at night, if there is no place to be, then her tears are nothing more than salty bodily secretions that happen to end up on a pillow. The cold universe doesn’t care or even know of her suffering. If there’s no place to be, then she will eventually die as will her abuser and 4.6 billion years from now the universe will continue on without having ever noticed.

If, however, there is someplace to be, if God does exist and He is the beginning of everything, then her tears mean something. If there is someplace to be, her tears are seen and felt by a righteous God who burns with absolute anger towards the actions of her abuser. While we can question why God allows it to happen, we can still know there is a sense of right and wrong; under nihilism not only can we not question why evil occurs, but we must question if good actually exists.

The reality is that for humans to continue to grow we must act as though our life has meaning. We must act as though there is a purpose to everything. The nihilist will say there is no ultimate purpose, but then tell us to create our own purpose. But why? If there is no purpose, why must we create one? “So we can get through the day.” And this is what gets me: If you have to act like something is true just so you can live, and every single person has to do this, then that something is probably true. If you have to “delude” yourself into believing there is a purpose for our lives in order to live then there probably is a purpose. If you can’t function without something then that something exists.

If there is a purpose then there is someone who has given that purpose. That Someone is God. We have murdered God by removing Him from our lives. But He had risen from the grave before and He can rise from the grave within our lives as well. Where will we go if there’s no where to be? We will go to God, because He is the “where” we need to be.

To finish with a quote from Fr. Seraphim Rose concerning nihilism and Christianity:

God has called us, not to the modern “heaven” of repose and sleep, but to the full and deifying glory of the sons of God; and if we, whom our God thinks worthy to receive it, reject this call, – then better for us the flames of Hell, the torment of the last and awful proof of man’s high calling and of God’s unquenchable Love for all men, than the nothingness to which men of small faith, and the Nihilism of our age, aspire. Nothing less than hell is worthy of man, if he be not worthy of Heaven.

A palindrome is a word or sentence that reads identically forward and backward, e.g., “Do geese see God?” The Greek palindrome inscription:

ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ

is from the Hagia Sophia. (In Greek, Ἁγία Σοφία is short for Ναός τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας, “Church of the Holy Wisdom of God.” This was an Eastern Orthodox church building in Constantinople, constructed in the fourth century. For over a thousand years it was the Patriarchal Basilica of Constantinople. It is now a museum.)

Written in modern orthography the palindrome reads,

Νίψον ἀνόημα μὴ μόναν ὄψιν

and means, “Wash your sin, not only your face.” I first found this palindrome in Bruce Metzger’s Reminiscences of an Octogenarian, 23.

The word palindrome is itself a Greek word, παλίνδρομος, a compound of πάλιν, “again” and δραμεῖν, “to run”/δρόμος, “a race, race course.” There were apparently many Greek palindromes current in the ancient world. Another example that I’ve run across is:

ἀμήσας ἄρδην ὀροφόρον ἥδρασα σῆμα.

“Having reaped I established a lofty-roofed monument.”

(This one I found in Lloyd W. Daly, “A Greek Palindrome in Eighth-Century England,” American Journal of Philology 102 [1982]: 95–97.)

So, as with semesters 1, 2, and 3, here’s the breakdown of this fourth one:

(1) On Tuesdays and Thursdays I took “Advanced Greek Grammar.”  Our in-class reading/translation was The Epistle to Diognetus, and each of us had to choose an additional non-biblical text to go through–I choose the letter of Ignatius to Polycarp.  The class also consulted numerous articles and books on the Greek language, amassing many helpful resources for future language work.  This class was stimulating, challenging, and helpful on many levels.  Though I might not have expected it, this class was my favorite at SBTS during these four semesters of doctoral work.

(2) On Wednesday mornings I attended a seminar on “The Gospel of John.”  On the first day of class I presented on the Greek of John 1:1-18, the marvelous prologue of the Fourth Gospel.  A few weeks later I presented a research paper on John 5:19-30.  Throughout the semester our class had rich discussion and edifying presentations.  Each student also consulted a commentary on John’s Gospel in order to bring another scholarly perspective to the day’s passage and paper, and mine was John Ramsey Michaels’ new contribution to the NICNT series.

(3) Also on Wednesdays I went to a seminar on “Approaches to Old Testament Theology.”  From week to week, students presented rounds of book reviews and then rounds of research papers, and the discussion was insightful and interesting, even when there was disagreement.  I presented a book review on John Sailhamer’s Introduction to Old Testament Theology, and I wrote a paper entitled “The Presence and Development of Resurrection Hope: An Inquiry into the Law, Prophets, and Writings.”

My semesters at SBTS seemed only to get better and better, so part of me is sad to see the course work come to an end.  But this crucial juncture in the program means a dissertation lies ahead–and, beyond that, graduation.

I was sent a link to this post by someone whom the DOJ is pursuing a similar action against. Check out this story from the Daily Caller:

For several months now the Obama administration has been abusing our judicial system through a concerted political intimidation campaign via the federal courts. Obama has instructed the Justice Department to sue a number of pro-life counselors and volunteers for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance (FACE) Act.

—-

. . . the Justice Department has just faced an embarrassing smack down on the highest profile of these cases. It has dropped an appeal in Holder v. Pineagainst pro-life sidewalk counselor Mary “Susan” Pine, who is represented by the civil rights firm Liberty Counsel. The DOJ has agreed to pay $120,000 for this frivolous lawsuit which, as the evidence indicated, was intended to intimidate Ms. Pine and send a shot over the bow of pro-lifers around the country.

Mr. Holder unsuccessfully sought thousands of dollars in fines against Ms. Pine, as well as a permanent injunction banning her from counseling women on the public sidewalk outside the Presidential Women’s Center (PWC) abortion mill (or any other “reproductive services” clinic).

After 18 months of litigation, the DOJ’s case was thrown out of federal court, and the department was chastised in a scathing ruling by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp for filing a case with no evidence.

Judge Ryskamp wrote that Holder’s complete failure to present any evidence of wrongdoing, coupled with the DOJ’s cozy relationship with PWC and their apparent joint decision to destroy video surveillance footage of the alleged “obstruction,” caused the court to suspect a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Obama administration. “The Court is at a loss as to why the Government chose to prosecute this particular case in the first place,” wrote Judge Ryskamp. “The Court can only wonder whether this action was the product of a concerted effort between the Government and PWC, which began well before the date of the incident at issue, to quell Ms. Pine’s activities rather than to vindicate the rights of those allegedly aggrieved by Ms. Pine’s conduct.”

Jeffery Leonard: Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions: Psalm 78 as a Test Case. It’s quite an interesting and helpful study which he divides into two parts: evaluating evidence for textual links and determining direction of influence. Here are the points that he considers under the two parts.

Evaluating Evidence for Textual Links

1. Shared language is the single most importantfactor in establishing a textual connection.
2. Shared language is more important than nonshared language.
3. Shared language that is rare or distinctive suggests a stronger connection than does language that is widely used.
4. Shared phrases suggest a stronger connection than do individual shared terms.
5. The accumulation of shared language suggests a stronger connection than does a single shared term or phrase.
6. Shared language in similar contexts suggests a stronger connection than does shared language alone.
7. Shared language need not be accompanied by shared ideology to establish a connection.
8. Shared language need not be accompanied by shared form to establish a con­nection.

Determining Direction of Influence

1. Does one text claim to draw upon another?
2. Are there elements in the texts that help to fix their dates?
3. Is one text capable of producing the other?
4. Does one text assume the other?
5. Does one text show a general pattern of dependence on other text?
6. Are there rhetorical patterns in the texts that suggest that one text has used the other in an exegetically significant way?

I do, however, want to take issue with both Köstenberger’s characterization of my approach to biblical theology and his commendation of J. P. Gabler’s.

Köstenberger has this to say of God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology,

Are your assumptions about the people who hear you preach and teach an affront to the reality that they are made in the image of God?

Here’s the intro:

Solid exegesis, biblical theology, and systematic theology are necessary for preaching and teaching. We don’t exercise these skills merely for our own excellence in sermon delivery, but because the people in the pews have the ability to think, analyze arguments, read the Bible for themselves, and formulate answers to questions that we may never even address from the pulpit.

The whole thing.

1) what is the value of a sex slave; of the young girl, sold by her parents into the sex industry when she was eleven; her body ravished by drugs and hordes of foul men?  Is her value a mere matter of utility?  If this is the case, then her value is directly tied to her usefulness.  But what is her use to society?  She is uneducated, she is addicted to drugs, she is psychologically damaged . . . how useful to society is such a person?  Or, perhaps, her usefulness is tied to the only job she has ever known?  Perhaps the only thing which shall ever define her is one word: prostitute.  Is this her identity?  Is this her fate?

2) tell me, dear ethicist, does such a girl cease to have value when she ceases to be useful? Do your ethical theories align you with the slave drivers–those dealers in human flesh?  For you see, when the slaver deems his product useless, the product losses its value–and it is only fitting, in the mind of the slaver, to destroy what has become a worthless commodity.  After all, this is only good business.

3) how wretched is this thought!  How degrading!  How base!  That a human life should be reduced to mere utility . . . but, if God is dead, if we are simply the motion of atoms, what else shall we conclude?

4) I thank my Father in heaven, the creator and sustainer of all life, that such is not the fate of this young sex slave.  For she is made in your ineffable  image–in the likeness of Beauty, and Life, and Goodness Himself!  I thank you that she has value and dignity–that she is worthy of love and compassion–that she is worthy of our respect.  For her identity, her nature, will never be destroyed because her circumstances do not define her.  For as long as she has being, no amount of torture or abuse can destroy the image of the invisible God that constitutes her essence.

5) I extol the wonders of our Lord who loves this young girl, who bled for this girl, who died for this girl–that she might have life.  Truly you ground our being; our very existence depends upon You.  Truly, it is in you that human beings find their eternal value; and, in turn, their usefulness.

(1) What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage by Paul Tripp
(2) When Sinners Say “I Do” by Dave Harvey
(3) This Momentary Marriage by John Piper
(4) The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller
(5) Reforming Marriage by Douglas Wilson

If you’re in search of a great marriage book, I hope you enjoy any or all of the above.

Sometimes we need to focus on the beauty of creation. Sometimes we need to focus on building our society. But sometimes we should remember that this is still a world in which children suffer and die. The preacher with perfect hair and even more perfect teeth tells us that Jesus wants us to “have our best life now.” But how do we look at the father who’s child is fighting cancer and say, “Oh no, I promise you that this is the best Jesus wants for your kid.” We have cool, hip pastors with Hawaiian shirts telling us that Jesus wants us to live a purpose-driven life. But how do we explain to the parents who just lost their newborn child that Jesus has a purpose for his life? What life? He came into this world only to be snatched away, his only experience of this life being a hospital room.

If someone (from the “outside”) were to judge the Christian religion off our best selling books, some might conclude that Christianity is hateful, others might think it has somewhat of a point, I think one could justifiably sum up Christianity with one word, an adjective: naive. We’ve ignored the realities of this world. We preach that the world is fallen, but then shocked to discover that what we’ve preached is actually true; we are like the medium who claims to speak to the dead, but become afraid when the dead actually speak.

We become so wrapped up in the implications of the gospel, we spend so much time reading about the gospel, we debate over what exactly composes the gospel, that we’ve forgotten about the Gospel, the Truth, the Person, the Word.

When faced with the burdened down, the weary, the hurting, the victims of a life gone awry, Jesus does not lecture them on what His atonement accomplishes. Instead, He tells them, “Come to me, all who are wearied and overburdened, and I will give you rest (refreshing rest). Take my beam of balance (“yoke”) upon you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble at heart. And you will find rest in your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, my translation). That is the atonement, that in Christ we receive rest. Does Jesus save? Yes, if we let Him. Does Jesus save? Yes, if we seek rest in Him.

What is the atonement? What does it mean that Christ saves? It means this: Christ is the rest that the weary seek after, He is the hope that the hopeless long for, He is the lover of the unloved, the father to the orphans, the spouse to the widowed. He is strength for the weak, sight for the blind, sound to the deaf. He is light in our darkness, a companion to the lonely.

Never, ever, ever forget that this is the essence of the Gospel. It isn’t found in ceaseless debates or in an empty theology of self-betterment. The essence of the Gospel is that Christ came as the answer to the problem of evil. Christ didn’t come to give us some truth on how to live a better life. Christ didn’t come to point us to some way of living that would make us better. Christ didn’t come to bring us methods on how to have a better marriage. Christ came as THE way. Christ came as THE truth. Christ came as THE life. He came to teach us about Himself. That is the essence of the Gospel.

At some point, we Christians need to wake up and realize that we’re in a world that is stuck in winter. The darkness of this season penetrates the souls of all. We are left outside in the snow as the sun sets, attempting to find a fire to warm us. Many people find these fires of false philosophies, fires that provide a temporary warmth. But even these fires cannot last throughout the winter or even the night. The role of a Christian isn’t to put a blanket on those stuck in this frigid winter and tell them that Jesus gave them the blanket. The blanket is nice, it provides temporary warmth, but it ignores the bigger issue. Our role is to bring these people out of winter and into summer. Jesus saves? Then let us save people by gently helping them to migrate to warmer lands rather than protesting them for being cold.

We must tell them, we must show them, that Jesus is the warm summer heat to the frigid winter in our souls. Anything short of that and we have failed.

Does this do justice to the actual details of the texts in question? I don’t think so. Consider Revelation 19:20,

“And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.”

What John says about the beast and the false prophet here is intended to identify the beast and the false prophet as the characters we know from Revelation 13:13–18. Let’s take it phrase by phrase:

Rev 19:20a, “And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs”
Rev 13:13a, 14a, “It [the false prophet] performs great signs . . . and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast”

Rev 19:20b, “by which he deceived”
Rev 13:14b, “it deceives those who dwell on earth”

Rev 19:20c, “those who had received the mark of the beast”
Rev 13:16–18, “…it causes all…to be marked on the right hand or the forehead…the mark…the name of the beast or the number of its name”

Rev 19:20d, “and those who worshiped its image”
Rev 13:14b, 15a, c, “telling them to make an image for the beast . . . allowed to give breath to the image . . . cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain”

John has piled up these phrases from Revelation 13 to identify the beast and the false prophet captured in Revelation 19:20. These phrases from Revelation 13 that are reused in 19:20 refer back to the persecution of Christians seen in chapter 13, and in my view, that persecution refers to the satanic persecution of Christians in all of church history. Jesus ascended into heaven in Revelation 12:5, Satan was cast out of heaven because of the cross and resurrection of Jesus (Rev 12:7–12), and he went off to make war on the woman and the rest of her seed, Christians (12:13–17).

Satan went about making war on Christians by summoning a fake christ from the sea in Revelation 13:1. God has a Lamb standing as though slain, Christ (Rev 5:6). Satan twists this with his knock-off many-headed beast that has a head that seemed to have a mortal wound, but the mortal wound was healed (13:1–3). Satan has faked the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus with his un-lamb-like beast. The world responds to Satan’s parody the way it should respond to Jesus–all but the elect worship Satan and his beast (13:4, 8). Then the beast uses his authority to kill Christians (13:7, 15).

Note that John expressly says that Satan, the beast, and the false prophet (the satanic parody of the holy Trinity, cf. Rev 16:13) deceive those who dwell on earth. In other words, they’re doing throughout church history what they’re not able to do during the millennium.

Jesus comes and puts a stop to that deception by casting the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire in Revelation 19:20, and the angel puts the dragon, Satan, into the pit for a thousand years “so that he might not deceive the nations any longer” in 20:1–3.

So it seems that John has referred back to the persecutions of Revelation 13 in Revelation 19:20 to show how all that has come to an end with the coming of Christ. Then Christ reigns for the thousand years in Revelation 20:1–6.

Some amillennialists think that the end of Satan’s ability to deceive in Revelation 20:3 means that the gospel can now go to the gentiles. That is, they think we’re in the thousand years now, and that Satan’s ability to deceive the nations has been stopped in the sense that he can no longer keep the true knowledge of God from the nations now that Christ has come, done his work, and sent his disciples to make disciples of all nations.

I submit that this explanation does not fit the narrative of the book of Revelation. I’m not imposing this narrative on the book. John himself highlights it by means of the kinds of details I’m pointing out: in the reuse of phrases from Revelation 13 in Revelation 19:20.

How does the narrative go? Satan, the beast, and the false prophet are deceiving the nations to worship the beast, and they’re killing Christians throughout church history (Rev 11–17). Christ comes and ends their deception of the nations (19:20; 20:3), raises the Christians they’ve killed from the dead (20:4–6), and reigns for a thousand years. Then Satan is loosed for the final rebellion (20:7–10) before the great white throne judgment (20:11–15) which is followed by the new heaven and new earth (Rev 21–22).

Note that it is only after the thousand years that Satan is thrown into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet already were. Revelation 20:10 states,

and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Beast and false prophet thrown into the lake of fire at the second coming of Christ (Rev 19:20). Satan bound for a thousand years (20:1–6), released to deceive a last time (20:7–9), then he too is thrown into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet already were (20:10).

There is a chronological progression that unfolds here, and Revelation 19:20 contributes to it. It’s a symbolic chronology, but it is a chronology.

—

See further Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches, Preaching the Word. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

The fact that she’s drunk with the blood of the saints means that the wicked world has been killing Christians. Why do Christians get martyred? How does it happen?

These are the enemies of God who are troubling God’s people: governments that put Christians to death or imprison them; social networks and dynamics among groups of people that build a plausibility structure in which the truth of the Bible is regarded as backwards and shallow and for the weak; and these are powers at work in the world to make Christianity seem negative or weak or foolish or not respectable (Revelation, 327).

Here are the excerpts:

The Historic View
Marriage as a comprehensive union: Joining spouses in body as well as mind, it is begun by commitment and sealed by sexual intercourse. So completed in the acts by which new life is made, it is specially apt for and deepened by procreation, and calls for that broad sharing of domestic life uniquely fit for family life. Uniting spouses in these all-encompassing ways, it also calls for all-encompassing commitment: permanent and exclusive. Comprehensive union is valuable in itself, but its link to children’s welfare makes marriage a public good that the state should recognize, support, and in certain ways regulate. Call this the conjugal view of marriage.

The Revisionist View
Marriage as the union of two people who commit to romantic partnership and domestic life: essentially an emotional union, merely enhanced by whatever sexual activity partners find agreeable. Such committed romantic unions are seen as valuable while emotion lasts. The state recognizes them because it has an interest in their stability, and in the needs of spouses and any children they choose to rear. Call this the revisionist view of marriage.

President Obama has made it clear that he favors the second view. He hasn’t offered any arguments for it, merely pointing to his feelings and those of his children.

—

Now that the president has disclosed his view, he — like all revisionists — must confront some tough questions. And he, like they, will run into a problem. Something must set marriages as a class apart from other bonds. But on every point where most agree that marriage is different, the conjugal view has a coherent explanation — and the revisionist has none.

—

The president has now created a platform for this very discussion; and it is a discussion we look forward to having. For as Obama himself implied, this is not a dispute featuring “bigots” on one side, any more than it has “perverts” on the other. It is a debate of reasonable people of goodwill who disagree about the nature of the most basic unit of society. In saying that he supports letting states decide the definition of marriage for themselves, Obama indicated that this issue shouldn’t be settled by judicial fiat. On this, we agree. Our national conversation shouldn’t be brought to an undemocratically abrupt end. But as it continues, advocates on all sides must contend with, and answer, the central question in this debate, without which we can’t know the what or the why of legal recognition, much less what justice demands: What is marriage?

God help us.

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future’s endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
While there’s always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we’re going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it’s god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature’s simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
‘Goodness = what comes next.’
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

Source

HT: John O’Sullivan

*Update at bottom of post

Even though the vast majority of people who have an opinion on gay marriage may not realize it, their opinion is ultimately shaped by their view of metaphysics (even if they’ve never consciously developed such a view). In metaphysics, especially in the West, there are two predominant views: Realism and nominalism.

For most of our readers, those two terms have no meaning, so it’s best to explain them before going on. Realism is the belief that things have a perfect form whereas nominalism is the belief that we give the form to things. Since there is no easier way to understand outside of an analogy, it’s best to use an analogy.

Think of a tree. We know when we’re looking at a tree even if we don’t know the type of tree. Realism teaches us that we know this because there is an ideal form of tree; there is an ultimate version of tree and all other trees are copies (albeit imperfect copies) of that ideal form of a tree. Nominalism says that there is that tree and other objects that look like it. There is no ideal form of a tree; each “tree” exists independently and we only call these objects “trees” because it makes it easier for us to categorize things. Thus, there is no absolute form of a tree, only our constructed view.

When applied to ethics, the issue becomes a bit clearer. Realism says that there are right things and wrong things independent of the human experience. Thus, murder is wrong even if a society says that murder is right. Nominalism, on the other hand, states that ethics are only as true as a society says. There is no absolute right and wrong, only mental constructs of what is right and what is wrong. Thus, murder is wrong so long as the people agree to say that it is wrong; once the people stop saying it is wrong, there are no moral implications to taking an innocent person’s life.

Thus, the realists look at marriage and say, “There is an ideal form of marriage to which all other marriages must achieve or attempt to achieve.” The nominalists look at marriage and say, “Marriage is what we say it is, we can define it however we desire.” And this is where we see the whole issue of homosexual marriage. Once we strip back the pithy responses, the strawmen arguments, and even the moral judgments, it is here we see the most basic level of this debate: Does an ideal to marriage exist and if so what is it?

What society, and many Christians, fail to understand is that to be a Christian (at least in the proper Christian tradition) is to be a committed realist. Christians believe that God created humans in His own image and that Christ came to restore us back to His image, which destroys the idea of nominalism right there. The Bible is replete with passages telling Christians to conform to Christ’s image, that Christ is the New Adam, that Christ is the perfect man, and so on. That means that for Christians, Christ is the ideal form of what it is to be human and we are to strive to conform to that ideal. That is realism. Nominalists would say that we determine what it is to be human, which runs contrary to Scripture; this is why Christians are committed realists (or should be).

This also means that Christians believe there is an ideal view of marriage. They get this view from Genesis and dumb it down to “one man, one woman.” And when reading Scripture it’s very apparent that God’s ideal for marriage is for it to be between one man and one woman. At the same time, we see other passages where multiple wives are allowed. Does this mean that the realist is wrong in his view of marriage? Not at all, it simply means that the ideal is not always realized. If the ideal were always realized then there would be no need for Christ. It means that God is willing and able to allow the ideal to be sacrificed to a certain degree in a fallen world in order; thus, war is not God’s ideal, but He allows it and orders it to counteract a fallen world. Polygamy and divorce are not ideal, but allowed within a certain context in a fallen world.

This is also why nominalists have such a hard time interpreting Scripture, they don’t understand the metaphysical commitments that Christians have made. They look at Scripture and say, “But passages concerning homosexuality are all in the Old Testament, which no longer applies!” or “But God allows polygamy, so it’s not ‘one man and one woman’!” Some will point to Romans and say that this is based on pagan practices in homosexuality and not homosexuality itself (which requires one to perform hermeneutical gymnastics to come to this conclusion). The realists look at these passages and say, “But these do not conform to God’s ideal of marriage” or “eating shellfish and wearing clothing of a single fabric has nothing to do with God’s ideal for humanity (as made clear in the New Testament), but how we conduct ourselves in marriage and who we choose to marriage has everything to do with His ideal for humanity.” And thus we see our metaphysical commitments interact.

The shorter version of this is Christians are against homosexual actions not out of ignorance, but out of the view that such actions do not fit within the ideal of marriage. The reason is that Christians also view men and women to have defined roles, or a defined telos to which they are ascribing. This is another issue where nominalists and realists speak past each other, on the role of men and women in society. Nominalists say that gender roles are a societal construct. Realists say that they have everything to do with our construct as humans. Reading Scripture one sees that realism is found even in how gender roles are defined. Thus, if one follows the realism of Scripture, one comes to the conclusion that men have an ideal and women have an ideal, that the two genders are different, yet compliment each other. If this view of realism is correct, then it only follows that marriage should be between one man and one woman because it fits within their respective telos.

Now, none of this speaks to the legal battle except to say this: One’s view of marriage is inherently tied to one’s religious views, which is exactly why the government should be forbidden from issuing marriage licenses. The ideal Christian marriage is one where a man and women come before God and are united as one. This view, however, is not shared by the populace. The government has no right to interject its opinion into the marriage issue. Instead, since taxes and other legal concerns do exist, the government should only issue civil unions and stop there. Those civil unions should exist for anyone regardless of beliefs or gender.

However, what I am saying does speak to the moral issue of homosexuality and how one approaches Scripture. I think it helps if we remove the façade of the debate surrounding homosexuality and reduce it to its metaphysical issues. Thus, while I still oppose marriage amendments that limit the rights of homosexual couples, I still view homosexual actions as going against the telos of humans, or against the ideal for humans.

All that being said, Christians need to understand their own foundations for beliefs as well. The way Christians have approached the homosexual issue has been utterly cruel and uncalled for. The lack of pastors speaking out against bullying, or adding a caveat to it is not only unhelpful, it’s contrary to the teachings of Christ. Viewing homosexual actions as a sin is consistent with Scripture, but treating them as subhuman is not; their sin is no different than a man who looks at pornography (in fact, pornography is in many ways worse) or a heterosexual couple engaged in premarital sex. Ultimately, the human ideal is found in Christ and we must understand that none of us have become as He is.

In the end, both sides needs to understand where each is coming from. We still need to have a discussion over these issues; after all, Christians could be wrong in their interpretation of the Scriptures. Maybe God’s ideal for marriage has nothing to do with gender (though this would mean that God doesn’t have an ideal for the genders either, which would be harder to prove). But comparing those who view homosexuality as a sin to Nazis or calling us ignorant isn’t going to get us to see your side. Likewise, calling people sodomites or treating homosexuality as some atrocity to befall us while ignoring other, bigger issues, isn’t going to convince people of the truth of Scripture. Both sides need to stop acting like children and instead face this issue with mutual dignity and respect.

* If you’re struggling to understand what I mean by “realism” and “nominalism,” you can replace “realism” with “universals” and “nominalism” with “particulars” and then read this post. 

Let us suspend reality for just a moment and imagine St. Athanasius has returned from the grave and is desperately craving a cup of hot coffee.  After locating the nearest coffee shop, he walks in with a huge smile on his face, only to discover that the imminent physicalists Jagewon Kim and Jeffery Poland are enjoying their morning brew before delivering a series of lectures at the local university. What sort of dialog might take place? . . .

Athanasius: “Good morning gentlemen! Grace to you and peace from our heavenly Father who spoke all things into existence through His own eternal Logos, through which all things hold together harmoniously and in good order!”

Jeffery Poland: “Good god man, you can’t be serious! If you please, I’m attempting to enjoy a cup of coffee before my next lecture.

Athanasius: “My apologies my friend, but surely one can not help but extol the wonders of the Logos who holds all things together!”

Jaegwon Kim: “You’re somewhat of an odd fellow. Are you not aware that what holds all things together are the fundamental laws of physics? My dear friend, there is no God. For, all things that exist in this world are bits of matter and structures aggregated out of bits of matter, all behaving in accordance with laws of physics . . . any phenomenon of the world can be physically explained if it can be explained at all. (1) So, enough of this nonsense about a divine logos.”

Athanasius: “I see. But, if you will, please explain to me the nature of these laws. Are the laws of physics themselves physical?

Jaegwon Kim: “Do we not experience them in the physical world? For all the things we experience are physical. Is this not obvious?

Athanasius: “Obvious indeed. So what you are saying is that the fundamental laws of physics . . . are the fundamental laws of physics?

Jaegwon Kim: “No, that would be circular reasoning.”

Athanasius: “My dear friend, if your ontology is correct then the only possible answer to the question of the nature of the laws of physics is that they are ultimately bits of matter and structures aggregated out of bits of matter all behaving in accordance with the laws of physics. For, as you say, “any phenomenon of the world can be physically explained if it can be explained at all.”

Jaegwon Kim: “Yes, I did say that.  But  . . . “

Jeffery Poland: “I didn’t want to get involved in this discussion, but I can hardly sit quietly any longer!  The relevant point here is that physicalists are (or should be) concerned with what exists in nature: i.e. with what can be spatially and temporally related to us, with that with which we can interact and by which we can be influenced, and with that of which we and the things around us are made . . . sets, propositions, universals, and so on, when abstractly conceived, are not considered to be in nature at all. Nor are they within the scope of the physicalists domain of study. (2)  Hence, your argument is superfluous.”

Athanasius: “But Mr. Poland, do you not state in your writings that ‘everything that exists is either an element of the physical basis or is constituted by elements in that basis?” and do you not further assert that, ‘everything that exists is, in this sense, ‘ontologically grounded’ in the physical domain?” (3)

Jeffery Poland: “Well yes . . .”

Athanasius: “So, physicalism is committed to the belief that everything which exists is ultimately grounded in the physical domain?

Jeffery Poland: ” . . . yes.”

Athanasius: “Tell me, Mr. Poland, do the laws of physics exist?

Jeffery Poland: “Well, of course . . .”

Athanasius: “Clearly, then, the laws of physics fall within the explanatory scope of physicalism!”

Jeffery Poland: “But that would lead to a tautology.”

Athanasius:  ”Exactly!  And you’ve only two ways in which to avoid this tautology:  (1) you can accept that the laws of physics are nonphysical universal truths, or (2) you can reformulate physicalism as being a methodological doctrine rather than an ontological one.  Perhaps the notion of a divine logos is not so foolish after-all?”

(1) Kim, Jaegwon. Physicalism or Something Near Enough. New York: Princeton University Press, 2001. 149-150.

(2) Poland, Jeffrey. Physicalism:  The Philosophical Foundations. New York: Oxford, 1994. 228.

(3) Ibid. 18.

Some highlights:

Time was when everybody understood a translation to be a more or less word-for-word transfer of meaning from one language to another—”or less” because grammatical constructions differ in languages foreign to each other and therefore sometimes require renderings looser than word-for-word. On the other hand, everybody understood a paraphrase to be recognizably freer: more thought-for-thought than word-for-word. But translation of the Bible increasingly into languages featuring grammatical structures far different from those of biblical Hebrew and Greek, and carrying cultural freight far different from that of the Bible, made word-for-word transfer a lot less feasible.

Along came the dynamic (or functional) equivalence theory of translation. For the sake of languages and cultures exotic to those of the Bible, this theory incorporated paraphrase into translation, so that even in English versions of the Bible the boundary between translation and paraphrase became as porous as the border between the USA and Mexico. You can even hear Eugene Peterson’s The message, a paraphrase if there ever was one and self-identified as such, quoted as a “translation.” The incorporation of paraphrase into translation may best be illustrated by the shift from the marketing of Kenneth Taylor’s The Living Bible originally as “a paraphrase” to its being marketed now as The New Living Translation, though those who revised it (I was one of them) were told at the start to keep it recognizable as a paraphrase by Taylor.

In the wake of this development arrives The Kingdom New Testament (from here on KNT) by N. T. Wright, identified effusively in its back ad as “the world’s leading New Testament scholar (Newsweek)” and accurately in its gatefold as “one of the world’s leading Bible scholars.” Duly distinguishing between translation and paraphrase, Wright asks, “Is this new version really a translation or a paraphrase?” and answers, “It’s a translation, not a paraphrase.” Why a new translation? Because language is constantly changing, so that “translating the New Testament is something that, in fact, each generation ought to be doing.” (I leave aside the question whether for the present generation enough new translations have already been produced.)

KNT originally appeared in Wright’s series of popular commentaries on the New Testament—Matthew for Everyone et al.—and therefore sports a colloquial style. I’ll call Everyone “Joe the plumber” and “Jane the hairdresser.” Or to suit today’s American culture, should I say “Jane the plumber” and “Joe the hairdresser”? Either way, “J&J.” And since Wright calls me “Bob,” I’ll call him “Tom.” Colloquialism all around, then, so that KNT is to be evaluated at the level of J&J’s everyday speech.

—

“She will, however, be kept safe through the process of childbirth” adopts one of several possible interpretations of 1 Timothy 2:15 by translating “She will be saved” as “She will … be kept safe” and by injecting “the process of” into “through childbirth.” Perhaps the most obvious example of a translation slanted by interpretation appears earlier in 1 Timothy 2:11-12, which Tom renders as follows: “They [godly women] must study undisturbed, in full submission to God. I’m not saying that women should teach men, or try to dictate to them; rather, that they should be left undisturbed.” Tom first replaces learning (from men) in quietness with studying undisturbed (by men). Then he imports “to God,” with no support in the Greek text, to make God rather than men the object of women’s submission—against the making of men, especially husbands, the objects of women’s submission according to Tom’s own translations of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35; Ephesians 5:22-24; Colossians 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1, 5. Finally, he changes Paul’s “I don’t permit [a woman to teach men or dictate to them]” into a wishy-washy “I’m not saying that ….”

—

Does KNT work, then, as a translation in the sense taken for granted by J&J when reading both KNT’s subtitle, “A Contemporary Translation,” the back ad’s description of KNT as “modern prose that stays true to the character of the ancient Greek text … conveying the most accurate rendering possible,” and Tom’s own statement of having “tried to stick closely to the original”? No, not even by the standards of dynamic/functional equivalence, of which J&J are ignorant anyway. Too much unnecessary paraphrase. Too many insertions uncalled for. Too many inconsistencies of translation. Too many changes of meaning. Too many (and overly) slanted interpretations. Too many errant renderings of the base language.

But there is a body of religious literature characterized by all those traits, viz., the ancient Jewish targums, which rendered the Hebrew Old Testament into the Aramaic language. So KNT’s similar combination of translation, paraphrase, insertions, semantic changes, slanted interpretations, and errant renderings—all well-intentioned—works beautifully as a targum. Which apart from the question of truth in advertising isn’t to disparage KNT. For the New Testament itself exhibits targumizing, as when, for example, Mark 4:12 has “lest … it be forgiven them” in agreement with the targum of Isaiah 6:10 rather than “lest … one heals them” (so the Hebrew), and as when 2 Timothy 3:8 has “Jannes and Jambres” in agreement with a targum of Exodus 7:11-8:19, which in the Hebrew original leaves Pharaoh’s magicians unnamed. Hence, Tom’s Targum. Trouble is, J&J won’t know they’re reading a targum.

Read the whole thing.

HT: Bobby Jamieson