aintsobad

God: What We Believe, II

   The clear hypothesis that God exists is on the table. It is there, in front of you.

   The Hebrew Bible, accepted (some say abducted) by the Christian writers whose work superseded it, plainly assumes the existence of God and begins to describe divine activity, cf. Genesis 1:1. The writer has God as Creator, the propositional head of all creative activity. 

   Now, how we do prove this hypothesis, if the original statement of the existence of God is based on divine creative activity? That is, the first time we see God is when God creates time because time exists only when and if it can be measured. If, then, we spend our time trying to prove the existence of God by some naturalist focus on the material world, we miss the Biblical point. It is the measurement of time, or passage of time, the existence of time which posits the reality of time by its measurement, that describes and defines God's creative interactivity with humankind.

   Stop looking at the dirt. Watch the sun move. The Creation declaring the handiwork of God is everything that comes from God and all that goes back to God in the culmination. The beginning and the ending of the Created Order, which beginning no one disputes and which ending all forecast, suggests time is of God, not of the natural order, for when the natural is not, God is, on both ends of time.

   So, the clear hypothesis "God exists" is on the table, there in front of you. Now, what test can we give to this hypothesis? 

   Let us say what we cannot do to prove this hypothesis, in order to set boundaries.

   We cannot say that reality contains only those things we immediately recognize as familiar. Mankind is limited in all his ways of knowing and forgetful, too.

   We cannot say that all reality exists in that which is measurable. If there is intuition, the zig-zag streak of genius, there is some application of truth that must come after reality is measured and the application, which may not be measurable itself, may be more important than the first measured truth. 

   We must not assume hard truth might be non-therapuetic, and so non-directional. The end of ethical conversation is not the end of ethics.

   With these boundaries in mind (or heart) we can start to look at the clear hypothesis, "God exists."

 

Opinion expressed here are mine alone.

 

 

God: What We Believe

   This is exciting stuff. Here is the Biblical formula for belief in God's existence. It is activity based, you will notice, and, to be complete, must be stated both positively and negatively. 

   "Through Him were all things made. Without Him there was not anything made that has been made. " John 1:3a.

   Thus, God is the Be-ing who creates all being. God's existence, His very nature, is defined in His creative activity. From this we decide that God is pre-existent, or eternal, for God is the Source of which all else becomes real. From this, we can determine God's overwhelming power. Anselm put it this way, "God is that above which nothing greater can be conceived."

   Since God can be posited as eternal and self-existent, we are then able to describe God as creative. That is, God is Creator of all. This is a description of God by a rehearsal of His activity, vis a vis the result of God's activity. Stated positively God's creative activity is seen from beginning to end. Stated negatively, God's creative activity is expressed from the end looking back to the beginning. This is not merely an explanation of God's nature by human accomodational language but, rather, a description of God in result of God's awesome activity in Creation, as Creator.

   Then, the Biblical writers can assume the existence of God, Genesis 1:1 and work from there. The fact the creativity of God can be stated positively and negatively (all things exist by Him, nothing that exists exists except in Him) is restated in Scripture to identify God as the Natural Creator (Understood) and the Creator of Nature (Active). That is, no other Creator can be assumed, but a Creator must be assumed.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Salvation in Christ: Look at What God Does

   What is the greatest asset of the Christian? It is Christian salvation, the divine product men most often ignore, the one most sorely needed.

   Salvation is all of God. The product is perfect because of its material, because of its source, and its intention.

   Let me show salvation to you, rather than just tell you about it. In so doing, perhaps we will find it harder to ignore salvation.

   Christian salvation, look with me, is that divine product most likely to remove from us our fear of the future. This world may end and its end may be our doing  but even the death of this world cannot be our undoing.

   Yes, we ought to love this world. Our Father made it, how can we not love it? The Earth is not here for robbery or rapine, but for our loving stewardship, as our Father loves us.

   Still, the world comes to an end, as do all things made of atoms. The world does not so much end, as we might say, as it does rearrange itself, into a variant atomic structure inhospitable to human life.  We fear the hot earth, the shaking planet beneath our feet, the climbing seas raised over our coasts, the giant storms, the end of rain. We are right to fear it for we cannot exist in a planet trying, as Vonnegut said, to "rid us from its immune system."

   What happens to us when we cannot live here anymore? Well, something good, very good, in fact. The clouds part above us as the tectonic plates shift below us. We hear a loud, brassy sound, unmistakeable in its clarity. There is a shout heard around the dying world, so deep and strong it rattles mountains, stirs oceans and pierces the grave.

   About ten billion people live on this planet now, more than at any other time in its recorded history. In the eons before, there may have been as many as another five or so billion all told. We have recorded, somewhere, the names of less than a tenth of them. For centuries only the names of kings were kept, so only kings were said to live forever. Time has forgotten most of the kings and almost all their subjects.

   God has not forgotten them. The Christ came into the world, sweeping aside the names of Kings, to write on the hearts of men His own name. Stay alive, die a sure death, the matter is the same. He will come for you, wherever they lay you, and He will find you.

   He takes away our fear of the future with this perfect salvation. Salvation is His product, our greatest want.  So, it is the happiest note of the angelic song to hear this: He comes.

   Clouds part, the stale air freshens suddenly. Ears dulled by daily drudgery delight, first to the clean trumpet sound and then to the mighty shout. Angels take their flight but no one looks to the angels, for He comes. This is a dramatic scene, for it is the final scene, so salvation is drama, not tragedy, only, and comedy only in that it is the happiest of endings.

   He comes. Him. The Lamb Slain Before the Foundation of the World. The One as Whom no other can be found. He comes. Some old preacher from the American Frontier called Him the Calvary Cavalry, who, at the darkest moment of all, comes from the sky with trumpet blaring, a-rush to the rescue.

   Perfect salvation, the divine product we most dearly need, is the one we most perilously ignore. In perfect salvation, death is temporary and life is durable, as God meant in Eden. God provides the perfect frame work, the opportunity, the inspiration.  Man responds and together  the rest is done.

   We do not "pay" for our salvation by rendering "payment in kind," for we are not His kind. This is always our greatest mistake. To work out our salvation with fear and trembling is to work on our salvation and ourselves in His light, certain where we work is His Kingdom.  Man has naught to give of which God has need but all have to give of that which God wants. The divine product is perfect salvation, which takes away our fear of the future.

 

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

 

 

Autumn: Close Enough for Me

   As it is nearly autumn, I am reading some Lincoln and Civil War Era episodes. The main one is a re-read of William Lee Miller's Lincoln's Virtues. Miller is a historian/ethicist who gives us a discussion of Lincoln's ethics from early to late in life. It is a must read.

   In this case, it is a must re-read.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Sunday Evening, September 18, 2011-Israel Trip Pictures

   I will not do this to you more than once (or twice).

   Sunday night, September 18, 2011, at 6pm, we will relive  my recent Israel trip. Yes, I have 194 pictures. Yes, if I talk for five minutes about each picture that is, well, let's see, about a million minutes.

   So, I will not do this to you. I will hit some highlights, review the trip and try not to be too very laborious.  We will do this once and let it go. Or maybe twice. It was a good trip.

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

The Chill of September 15

August

let her go.

She is not a month to miss

or long for

or think your friend.

September

I'll dismember

all the thoughts of heat and fear.

The night's a nice place again

with a cup of tea,

a place to write

and the signal echo 

of civility.

 

 

 

Kung Fu Panda: I Love it

   I've a good friend. He is a fellow whose discipline and ability I admire. He has two fifth degree black belts in a couple of Japanese martial arts. I have watched him break boards, spar with black belts half his age and send them flying.

   He blogs over at spiritualsamurai2011. He is often as delicate as a meat cleaver. However, his blog is the only one in Texas on Texas baptist issues that actually matters. The rest respond to him.

   Some little wienies over at another unmentioned blog look at his spiritual samurai post (samurai means servant) and have renamed him Kung Fu Panda. They do this anonymously, as they lack the essential  chemical testosterone. 

   Here is the guilty truth. Every time I see the Kung Fu Panda logo now, I do think of David Montoya, the spiritual samurai. Forgive me, David, you look like a Panda, even with your recent weight loss. The kind, quizzical face, the powerful shoulders, the rambling gait, the slow common motions, the relentless charge when stirred. David, you are the Panda.

   The other fellows, they are just bamboo shoots, suitable for your meals. They are long, hollow reeds, annoying but inconsequential. The one thing they have done for me is call you the Kung Fu Panda, which makes me laugh. 

   Of course, they would not say it to your face. Heavens, that would be too much. 

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Pithy Sayings for a Monday

   "I am not the kind of person I enjoy, so I try not to spend much time alone."

                            ------American Humorist, circa 2011

   "The future is not so much the past to be revisted as it is the present to be bungled."

                            -------American Humorist, circa 2011

   "I am a rock. I am an island. These are things said by someone likely to be landed on."

                            -------American Humorist, circa 2011

 

 

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

 

9/11/01 And Beyond

   Ten years ago the American nation came under terrorist attack from an outside source. This was not our first experience with terrorism.

   The British burned the White House during the War of 1812. The South seceded from the Union and comitted the largest act of terrorism against the United States of America in its history. There would have to be more than 2,200 recurences of the Twin Towers/Pentagon bombings of 9/11/01 to equal the population destruction of the American Civil War.

   Timothy McVeigh, a home-grown  American atheist, committed an act of similar terrorism against children, women and unarmed men in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. We have seen our terrorists.

   Four of our presidents have been murdered on our streets. Reagan was shot. Ford was shot at but missed. 

   There have been other terrorists, other terrorist acts.  I fear we shall see them again.

   A terrorist attack is an assault from the common. A suicide bomber walks into a bistro and kills forty coffee drinkers. A person goes to work and does not come home because a jet liner flies into his buildiing. Common elements of ordinary life make us watch our fellows with new caution. We become a wary people.

   In Israel last month I looked at a society so attuned to defend itself against terrorism is has virtually lost its ability to be amused or to amuse itself. Men and women carry firearms, they must, for when the shooting starts, it is not good to be the only one without a gun. Their society is so dominated by the need to protect itself militarily they literally cannot produce consumer goods and services (including housing and medical care) enough for their population unless everyone does with a bit less and gives a bit more.

   Naturally, there are persons in that society who keep a lot more and charge even more. The Israeli middle class is being squeezed out of existence more effectively than if the terrorist societies around them had reached them all with bombs.

   There were hundreds of persons in various Israeli cities living in tents outside public facilities to demonstrate their inability to pay the high rents charged by the rich. The doctors were on strike for higher wages. The Israeli middle class is in a mess. Their resilence, however, is historically demonstrable.

   The American middle class is disappearing, as well. We are a hardy lot. Our demise is not easily brought about but the tax policies of the government, favoring the super-rich, and the elitist policies of the giant corporations, again, in favor of the super-rich, contribute to a steady decline in the number and safety of middle wage earners.

   Americans need to understand it is not enough to hate the party in power or to cry for satisfaction in certain social issues. We have been captive to our hatreds and victim to our social weal too long. It is time to put America back to work, past time in fact, before we too become a society that does not smile.

 

Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Jonathan and Stephanie Davis Announce the Birth of Abry Jo Davis

   Abry Jo Davis came into the world this morning, September 8, 2011, at 4:36am. She weighed in at 7 pounds and eleven ounces. She measured twenty inches in length.

   Around her as family were Mom and Dad, all four grandparents, an uncle, two aunts, two great aunts and a host of friends. Many more family members and friends helped take over the waiting room at the excellent Methodist Mansfield Hospital for the twenty-two hours of labor. Mother and child are fine. Father is a bit stingy with holding the child and will not immediately share with the paternal grandfather (me).

   All is well.