The biggest challenge to the Christian faith is why an all benevolent God would allow evil to befall His creation. Ultimately, the problem of evil is one of the most beautiful aspects of Christianity, providing legitimacy for much of what it teaches. For the Christian perspective, evil is a metaphysical necessity in all possible worlds so long as God decides to create in all possible worlds. Since God creates optimally and cannot create less than perfect, what occurs in the actualized world is optimal, perfect beyond all possible worlds. The evil experienced in this world, though difficult and emotionally tragic, still leads to the beauty of God’s love. Evil, therefore, is necessary because it is the most optimal way for God to display His love to His creation.
The Metaphysical Necessity of Evil
18 12 2007Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Philosophy, Theology
What Sinners Dare Not Dream
16 12 2007
A lost and lonely world fell asleep that night not understanding the magnitude and importance that it held. A babe had been born in Israel that would change the course of human history. Born to a virgin, heralded in by angels, found among the unclean animals, hail to the Savior of the world. The God of all was to be born among the animals Jews were prohibited from touching. The Master of destiny was to be visited and worshiped by shepherds, the lowest of Jewish society. The First Born of all creation was to be a bastard child, to be raised up ridiculed and rejected by his peers. In this hopeless wreck we find Jesus Christ, Redeemer of all.
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Categories : Devotional
Theodicy
11 12 2007O sovereign Lord of all
To You we lift our eyes
Before Your holiness we fall
O Father please hear our cries
Though trial and tribulation abound
And great evil we cannot ban
Our worries, You say, are unsound
And we should seek solace in Your plan
We do not know whom evil will select
Or why the innocent must suffer
But You promise to preserve Your elect
You are the Holy buffer
And when we feel tempted to ask why
We merely need to look Heaven bound
And to our Father we can cry
Only in You can comfort be found
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Categories : Poetry, Theological
Descartes, Pascal, and Reformed Epistemology: Re-evaluating epistemology
11 12 2007When Pilate uttered the question, “Quid est veritas” he asked a question that many have attempted to answer, three of which – Descartes, Pascal, and Reformed Epistemologists – have given answers that have shaped modern thought. From the time of Emperor Constantine’s establishment of a sacral system to the beginning of the Enlightenment, epistemology was almost taken for granted. For the philosopher, one merely relied upon tradition, scripture, and papal decrees to know what was true about the universe; the layman merely accept what the scholastic philosopher or bishop said. After the Reformation, it was savvy to question the established way of thinking. On this scene came Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, who taught the philosopher to question everything and doubt all preconceived notions. He elevated man’s reasoning in the hopes of finding a unified system to discover truth. In response to Descartes was Pascal’s approach of recognizing the fallen nature of reason without quantification to its importance. In between the two is Reformed Epistemology, teaching that man is both significant, reasonable, and capable of knowing truth, while paradoxically insignificant, unreasonable, and incapable of living truth. Thus, Pilate’s question, “Quid est veritas,” is one that has been asked for quite some time.
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Categories : Philosophy
Eisegesis vs. Exegesis
10 12 2007Often in the church, lay people will hear these two words and simply raise an eyebrow about what is meant. After all, they do not have the luxury of attending seminaries that teach these confusing concepts. These concepts, however, dictate how we read the Bible and apply it. The church has done a disservice to people by not teaching them the meaning of these concepts or how to apply these concepts in their daily reading of scripture. Though I cannot fix this with one post, I do want to, hopefully, set us back on the right path. Before this can be done, we must understand what each word means.
Exegesis is the application within interpretation that “provides sound reasons for the choices it makes and positions it adopts.”[1] In short, exegesis explains a portion of the Bible by appealing to the historical, authorial, cultural, linguistic, immediate, and overall context of the passage.
Eisegesis is reading one’s preconceived notions, biases, and understandings into the text. We all bring biases to the text, but eisegesis is when we allow these biases to dictate how we read the text. If we assume, before reading scripture, that Jesus is not God, whenever we come across a passage that indicates Jesus is God, we will do what we can to twist the passage into saying what we want it to say.
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Categories : Philosophy, Theology
