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Geoff

Sunday School on Christians and Goal Setting

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Christians and Goal Setting

Can Christians Set Goals?

Jas 4:13-17 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— (14) yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. (15) Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (16) As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (17) So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

  1. Many might read this passage and mistakenly think: I guess setting goals is bad.
  2. On the contrary, James is against arrogantly planning to do things without considering:
    1. That the Lord sustains all life.
    2. That we deserve to die in our sins.
    3. That we should seek to conform our plans to the commands of the Lord (his will).
  3. This passage might also be about giving false appearances to look good, look rich, and self-aggrandize while looking down on the poor and the seemingly more sinful. This can be seen here:
    1. Jas 4:1-4 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? (2) You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. (3) You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (4) You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
    2. Jas 4:9-12 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. (10) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (11) Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. (12) There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
    3. Jas 5:1-4 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. (2) Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. (3) Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. (4) Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
    4. Jas 5:12 But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

In Fact Christians Should Set Goals (Poverbs 2:11):

  1. We are creatures within time.(Psalm 90:12)
  2. We are creatures made up of habits. (Romans 6:1-8:13)
  3. We are creatures designed to exhibit habits that approach the goodness of God. (Mark 10:45, 12:29-31, 1 Corinthians 10:30-11:1, Ephesians 5:1-2, 2 Peter 1:3-11)
  4. We are individuals with tasks, callings, and experiences specific to us. (Gen 1:27, 1 Corinthians 12)
  5. Self-improvement is not sinful…if done in the right way it is a Biblical command. (Prov 19:8)
  6. To live in time, to develop Godly habits, and to use our experiences, perform our tasks, and live up to our callings we must make plans and goals to do so.

Christians: Have you planned to walk away from sin? Have you planned ahead to, not just do, but to become good? Do you do good, not just off the cuff, but because you devised a way to do so.

Goal/Resolution Guidelines

Make Useful Goals (Paul Meyer is the source of this system)

    1. Specific
    2. Measurable
    3. Attainable
    4. Realistic
    5. Timed (short and long term)
    6. Recoverable (added by Geoff)
  1. Make categorized goals:
    1. General Character and Maturity (keeping a clean room/car, turning in all papers at least one week early, waking up early enough to not have to rush to work or school, only watch television one night a week, etc)
    2. Financial (save 300 dollars a month, only eat out once a week, make a budget, etc)
    3. Fitness (run a 6 minute mile by June, do one hundred push-ups by November, only eat sweets on Saturdays, etc)
    4. Spiritual Goals (pray the Lord’s prayer every day, read one chapter of Proverbs a day, visit the station every Wednesday, plan a short term mission trip, meet with an accountability partner every Sunday before church, etc)
    5. Academic/Career Goals (practice my skill an extra two hours a day, write a blog post every day when I’m not writing papers, sit with boss and ask what it will take to move up by July, study one hour a night starting seven days before every test, etc)
    6. Enrichment Goals (read a classic novel every month, take piano lessons, learn to knit, go for a long walk every Tuesday, etc)
  2. Means
    Every goals takes steps. Never create a goal without steps in mind.

Conclusion
Think about goals that you need and want to set for yourself in order that you might live for God’s glory and for the purpose of attaining to the good.

Jim West vs New Year Resolutions

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Jim West came down, seemingly jokingly, against New Year Resolutions with a quote from James 4:13-16.

13 ¶ Ἄγε νῦν οἱ λέγοντες· σήμερον ἢ αὔριον πορευσόμεθα εἰς τήνδε τὴν πόλιν καὶ ποιήσομεν ἐκεῖ ἐνιαυτὸν καὶ ἐμπορευσόμεθα καὶ κερδήσομεν·
14 οἵτινες οὐκ ἐπίστασθε τὸ τῆς αὔριον ποία ἡ ζωὴ ὑμῶν· ἀτμὶς γάρ ἐστε ἡ πρὸς ὀλίγον φαινομένη, ἔπειτα καὶ ἀφανιζομένη.
15 ἀντὶ τοῦ λέγειν ὑμᾶς· ἐὰν ὁ κύριος θελήσῃ καὶ ζήσομεν καὶ ποιήσομεν τοῦτο ἢ ἐκεῖνο.
16 νῦν δὲ καυχᾶσθε ἐν ταῖς ἀλαζονείαις ὑμῶν· πᾶσα καύχησις τοιαύτη πονηρά ἐστιν. (James 4:13-16 BGT)

My translation:
Come now, you who constantly say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this city and we will stay there a year and we will do business and we will make profit; you cannot know that which happens tomorrow. What is your life? You are a vapor, appearing for a brief time, then dissipating. Instead, you should say, “Should the Lord will it, we both will live and do this or that. But as it stands, you are boasting in your arrogance, all such boasting is from the Evil One.” (James 4:13-16)

Now, this being the case, planning ahead seems like an awful idea. But there is more to James’ story:

 17  εἰδότι οὖν καλὸν ποιεῖν καὶ μὴ ποιοῦντι, ἁμαρτία αὐτῷ ἐστιν. (Jam 4:17 BGT)

Which translates, “Therefore, whoever knows the good he ought to do and does not do it, to him, it is sin. (James 4:17)

It seems, rather, that planning ahead to do good is the idea (ie to do what the Lord should will), rather than planning ahead to do what ever you want. Even better stated, plan ahead to do good and not to do evil. In this sense a New Year’s resolution is like an adiaphora cultural practice than can be used to help you do good. I think James, like Paul, is concerned about human boasting. Good works and future plans should not be for boasting and self-aggrandizement, but for the good (or more theologically: for God’s glory). 

Jonathan Edwards’ journals are filled with resolutions to do good as is his list of resolutions.

Anyhow, other Scripture speaks of this same issue. For instance, right after Paul tells his compatriots that there is not room for boasting in Ephesians 2:8-9, he says:
10  αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα, κτισθέντες ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς οἷς προητοίμασεν ὁ θεὸς, ἵνα ἐν αὐτοῖς περιπατήσωμεν. (Eph 2:10 BGT)
For we are his project, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance so that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

God has prepared good works to be done, thus Christians should do them (without boasting). But later in Ephesians Paul talks about being “renewed in the spirit of your mind, putting on the new man according to God, the creator, in righteousness and the piety of truth (Ephesians 4:23-24).” This kind of life takes forethought, like resolving, according to God’s will to memorize chunks of Jesus’ teaching, making plans to visit the sick in hospitals, and resolving (planning in advance) to have vacation times on weekdays rather than miss church services, etc.

In this respect, even self-improvement resolutions would be a good thing as long as it was self-improvement which did not contradict the example of John the Baptist (he must increase, I must decrease). The rule in terms of what ways to engage in self-improvement is also Scriptural, “test everything carefully, hold fast to that which is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21).”*

*Note: Paul’s teaching in 1 Thessalonians is about teachings from supposed prophets and thus about ideas in sermons in particular, and therefore applicable to ideas in general. If an idea is good, true, and beautiful and then also able to be put into practice without damaging your calling in life, then you not only can plan to do it. You probably should. 

Dave Ramsey and Rachel Held Evans

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Rachel Held Evans noted that Dave Ramsey gets some things wrong about poverty. On my lights she’s partially right about where he’s wrong. She accused him twice in the article of the false cause fallacy. 

One need not be a student of logic to observe that Corley and Ramsey have confused correlation with causation here by suggesting that these habits make people rich or poor…

 

“This list simply says your choices cause results,” he said, again committing the false cause fallacy. “You reap what you sow.”

 

Now, Evans probably isn’t a student of logic, if her interpretation of Ramsey is correct, he is committing that fallacy. When she quotes him (the bold above) Dave pretty much admits that he sees pure causation there. Incidentally though, causation does imply correlation. That is what statisticians are often looking for. A meta-analysis or a simple thought experiment might show that it is logically possible (which Evans admits) for a person’s bad habits to make them poor. Because it is logically possible and is anecdotally true, it is understandable and perhaps somewhat wise for Ramsey to point that out. Sometimes the best we can do is say, “a large percent of smokers die of awful cancer than non-smokers rarely get…please don’t smoke (I picked this as an obvious example).” 

Nevertheless, Ramsey needs to imbibe more of the truth that sometimes, “Pro_13:23  The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.” Also, Ecclesiastes is clear that good things do not always come to those who work for them.

My biggest beef with Ramsey, though, has always been that the statistics he often provides people with are stats based upon what rich people who cheat to stay rich do. Note what Gary North (who though many do not like him, has a PhD. in Economics) points out that Dave bases many of his claims upon the book The Millionaire Next Door:

What’s wrong with this rosy picture? This: the book describes self-made rich men, and almost all of them made it by starting a business. What’s more, most of them declared bankruptcy once. Some did it repeatedly. They lived in terms of debt. They stiffed their investors, their bankers, and their relatives. Starting a business is risky. They passed to others as much of this risk as they could.

In the book, we learn that 85% of them had started businesses. To start a business, you must adopt one or more of these options to fund it: (1) borrow money from friends and relatives; (2) borrow money from a bank; (3) borrow money from customers (e.g., cash up front for a subscription); (4) put up your own money for a cash-only business (exceedingly rare the first time you start one); sell shares in your firm (even more rare). Once the business is profitable, you borrow money more to grow it. This is “the millionaire mind.” the authors’ title for their other book.

So, though Dave Ramsey, in the basics, can give really good advice. I’d say that he also has a tendency to uncritically use sources (which I suppose I could be accused of quoting Gary North). But, basing one’s economic paradigm off of people who declared bankruptcy (which Dave himself did) just seems unwise. The ultimate payoff of this criticism though is that Ramsey has made a fortune selling advice about how to get out of debt as a comeback from filing bankruptcy himself. That doesn’t make him a scam artist, it might actually lend credence to his advice. He cornered the market on a desperate need and started acquiring wealth (which raises its own problem…charging desperately poor people to help them get less poor might be suspicious…but it might also encourage them to follow through with their commitment to Dave’s program). 

But, back to Evans, she noted that she thinks that Dave Ramsey does not address the systemic issues that lead to poverty:

And throughout Scripture, people of faith are called not simply to donate to charity, but to address such systemic injustices in substantive ways.

The 17-year-old girl who lives in a depressed neighborhood zoned for a failing school system who probably won’t graduate because her grades are suffering because she has to work part-time to help support her family needs more than a few audio books to turn things around.

People are poor for a lot of reasons, and choice is certainly a factor, but categorically blaming poverty on lack of faith or lack of initiative is not only uninformed, it’s unbiblical.

The implication, again, is that Ramsey doesn’t do these things. I don’t know. He started a group called The Share it Foundation that exists to spread financial literacy. Hopefully that is meant to address those things. 

I also wanted to share some of my thoughts on Evans’ accusation that Ramsey teaches the prosperity gospel:

“There is a direct correlation,” he concludes, “between your habits, choices and character in Christ and your propensity to build wealth.”

For Christians, Ramsey’s perceived “direct correlation” between faith and wealth should be more troubling than his other confused correlations, for it flirts with what Christians refer to as the prosperity gospel, the teaching that God rewards faithfulness with wealth.

Ramsey’s particular brand of prosperity gospel elevates the American dream as God’s reward for America’s faithfulness, the spoils of which are readily available to anyone who works hard enough to receive them.

I don’t buy that. Claiming that Christian character correlates with an increase in material prosperity (which it historically has) it not claiming that faithfulness is rewarded with wealth. Evans made a big leap there. Paul gives advice that is meant to help people stay out of financial trouble, “Those who steal should not steal, but should work with their hands to give to those who have need (Ephesians 4:22).” Paul tells people to over come greed, to not be busy bodies, to work quietly, etc. Jesus does demand radical frugality and mercy to the poor, but Paul applies those sayings to the rich by admonishing them to share (1 Timothy 6:3-10). Paul warns against seeing Christianity as a way to get rich, but he also notes that Christian character (which includes contentment) leads to great gain. Now, Paul surely means the gain of life with God, but I don’t think he’s being ironic. I think he is saying that being godly really will lead to gain if you refuse to be greedy. 

God does not bless people with money; God blesses people with the good and perfect gift of God’s presence, which is available to rich and poor alike.

And that’s good news.

 

That is good news, but teaching people that getting out of debt often (but not always) requires a certain kind of character is not the prosperity gospel. It is wise Christian casuistry and has been for centuries. 

 

 

 

Till We Have Faces: a Review

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Till We Have Faces

A Review

 

C.S. Lewis’ novel Till We Have Faces (TWHF) is retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. The original myth is of a woman whose beauty is so renown that Aphrodite grants her to marry her son Cupid or forces her to marry her son, Cupid. Psyche’s sisters are so jealous of her husband that they plot to ruin the marriage (as Cupid is either so beautiful or hideous that he hides himself). The sisters tempt Psyche to use a lantern to catch a glimpse of Cupid, everything goes wrong from there. Lewis’ version utterly inverts this. I cannot say too much without revealing key plot points, but in the original tale the gods are petty and in the wrong. In this tale, the main character sees her own face as she tries to reveal what the gods’ faces are truly like.

 

The Good

The book shows Lewis’ understanding of human nature. He saw us in all of our pettiness, silliness, ugliness, beauty, and grandeur. His view of the human is thoroughly medieval and it show here. The main character, Orual, is narrated in such a way that the reader will want or even need to get to know her. It is interesting to have Lewis narrate the tale from the perspective of a female character too. I often find books written from the perspective of the opposite gender of the author to be bizarre. For some reason, this one works.

 

The Bad

The bad, here, is predicated upon the book. I’ve read it twice and it is haunting. It leaves me very unsettled because of its realistic depiction of our infinite capacity for self-deceit. So this is really good, but just expect to feel weird, even exposed after reading this novel.

 

The Awesome

Lewis’ thought comes through in the book in Marvelous ways, particularly in the interaction between the religion of the main character and the philosophy of her tutor, a Greek named, “The Fox.” This back and forth of concepts reminded me of a section from Lewis’ Essay, Christian Apologetics in God I the Dock:

 

We may [reverently] divide religions, as we do soups, into ‘thick’ and ‘clear’. By Thick I mean those which have orgies and ecstasies and mysteries and local attachments: Africa is full of Thick religions. By Clear I mean those which are philosophical, ethical and universalizing: Stoicism, Buddhism, and the Ethical Church are Clear religions.

 

The divergence and then convergence of understanding that the main character experiences is astounding, but again, largely because once she sees her own face or “speaks with her own voice” she is unable to address the gods. This is important for all of us. Until some experience of repentance or numinous horror can lead us to see ourselves as we are, then all our valid and thus very important reasoning about God’s reality is still somewhat inert. Even if we understand God’s essence in some way, it is not until we realize how he sees us that we can address him truly. This is what we have in the cross. Anyhow, the book just astounded me. I may read it again in December. I hope somebody else reads it and loves it.  

Mike Bird and the Arguments for God’s Existence

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I recently bought Mike Bird’s Evangelical Theology. It has been a marvelous read so far, but when I read the section entitled “Traditional Proofs for the Existence of God (pp 180-183)” I was left a bit frustrated. Now, please take the following comments with the understanding that the book, over all, has been edifying. I especially appreciate Bird’s attempt to make the gospel message itself (as described in the New Testament) the focal point of each traditional loci of theology. So it looks like this, “How does the gospel inform the doctrine of the church and how do traditional understandings of this doctrine illuminate the gospel.” It’s a very helpful approach. 

 

Enough gushing. Here’s why I was frustrated in outline format:

  1. The Ontological Argument

    Bird notes on page 180, concerning the ontological argument, “One cannot help but get the impression that the ontological argument is little more than a game of words with “God.” But, his homeboy, Alvin Plantinga notes that the argument is actually not all that bad. His version of the argument runs thus (Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, 108):

    1. It is possible that there be a being that has maximal greatness.

    2. So there is a possible being that in some world W has maximal greatness.

    3. A being has maximal greatness in a given world only if it has maximal excellence in every world.

    4. A being has maximal excellence in a given world only if it has omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection in that world.

    This version of the argument, which I take exception to for other reasons, is a restatement of Anselm’s argument in modal terms. It clearly isn’t a word game. Even Anselm’s statement of the argument which Bird uses is very abbreviated. He mentions Aquinas’ objection to the argument and it is pretty good, but ultimately, Bird’s own objection is not the same. Aquinas didn’t see it as a word game, but rather, he bought into Aristotle’s metaphysical presupposition that all knowledge must come from the senses. Incidentally, Aquinas’ forth way is actually very, very similar to the Ontological argument, but does not fail for the same reasons because of sensible gradations within reality.

  2. The Cosmological

    Bird’s understanding of the Cosmological argument is fairly standard, though he narrows it all down to the Kalam version which has been revived most recently by William Lane Craig. His main objection to the argument is “Establishing…a first cause is one thing. To demonstrate that this first cause is God, a personal God, or even the God of Jesus Christ is quite another thing (Bird 181).” It is another thing, but that doesn’t make the effort worthless. Not only is it not worthless, but Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles spends pages after page establishing why a first cause does have the attributes of the God of revelation.

    Imagine if I objected to his historical Jesus work by saying, “Establishing that Matthew’s gospel was written by a Jewish believer in Jesus is one thing, but demonstrating that his sources were accurate is quite another.” The same could be said in geometry, “Demonstrating that a triangle’s angles add up to 180 degrees is one thing, but demonstrating that the squares of a right triangle’s legs add up to the square of the hypotenuse is another.” I would argue that the if you can demonstrate a first cause as a matter of logical necessity, along with other aspects of Aquinas’ arguments, and then establish the resurrection of Jesus as an historical event then the first cause must be the Father of Jesus Christ or more robustly, the Triune God.

  3. The Teleological Argument

    Bird, is again, wide of the mark here too (Bird, 182) This is an important one exactly because of certain debates raging today. He gives the full text of Aquinas’ summary of the argument in the Summa Theologica, but he then equates it with the argument of Paley, whose precis he also quotes. Both quotes are the quotes in William Lane Craig’s book, Reasonable Faith. Craig and Bird are both brilliant (as were Paley and Aquinas), but the arguments are only similar to one another on the surface. They are not the same argument. One of them is based upon the appearance of design to the mind of those familiar with design (Paley). On the other hand, Aquinas’ argument is actually about the very nature of causality (which most of the five ways are). Aquinas elsewhere argues about the importance of Aristotle’s four causes for understanding nature (see http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/DePrincNaturae.htm ). The “final cause” is the form of causality that refers to the finality towards which things, events, and existence tends. Aquinas argues that the existence of “if-then” or efficient/instrumental causality depends upon the existence of end goal causality and that since all of nature (intelligent and non-intelligent) tends towards goals/ends, then it can be said that God directs things towards their ends. This is not the same as saying “God made complicated things.” It is the argument that even the most complicated things have natural explanations precisely because an intelligence, nay an intelligent Being, directs these natural things towards their end. This is a common mistake. There may be something to Paley’s argument in the end, but it is not Aquinas’. I, personally, am and have been skeptical of it, but if it turns out to be true, my skepticism is what must give way to the truth. Thomist and Greek Orthodox folks alike have pointed out the error of equating the arguments (Edward Feser, Christopher Martin, Brian Davies, and David Bentley Hart come to mind).

  4. The Moral Argument

    Bird gets this pretty much right on the head (Bird, 183). If ethics is to be a science (in the sense of a body of knowledge) then it must postulate a divine law maker. The moral argument is more nuanced than that and it has wonderful rhetorical force as well as dialectic rigor in its best forms. Bird utilized Kant and Lewis’ version of the argument. I take that as wise.

 

Mike Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction.  Zondervan 2013.

Edward Feser, Between Aristotle and Paley: Aquinas’ Fifth Way (Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 11, No. 3, 2013), 707-4.

Edward Feser, Thomas Aquinas (a Beginner’s Guide) One World Books, 2009.

David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss Yale, 2013.

Christopher Martin, Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations  Edinburgh University Press, 1997.

Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity Oxford University Press 1974.

Davis, Stephen T.Publication Information:In God, Reason & Theistic Proofs.Edinburgh, [Scotland] : Edinburgh University Press. 1997

Recently I’ve discovered Dr. Feser whose understanding of Aquinas is actually context based rather than based on caricatures. See his article Between Aristotle and Paley: Aquinas’ Fifth Way (Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 11, No. 3, 2013), 707-4. My comments will mirror his own, though they are a bit different. I hope the deficiencies in my brief presentation are taken as evidence I studied Feser’s article with my own understanding of the difference between Paley and Aquinas, not as deficiencies within his presentation. Anyhow, Bird should read his article. It is, as they say in Australia, “Gucci.”

 

Tyson and Religious Scientists

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Something I’ve been saying for years has apparently also been said by Neil deGrasse Tyson:

This is important to me. When people have repeated the old canard that religious people are necessarily opposed to science and progress I usually point to the fact that I’m not opposed to science and I’m religious. That piece of hard, personally observable date usually never sufficed. I’d quote statistics. That also never seems to work. So I began trying pointing out how religious people, even profoundly religious people like Leonard Euler, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon, Galileo, and others were scientists and mathematicians and logicians. Heck my landlord is a Christian and a Coral Reef biologist who is doing ground breaking work in preserving, observing, and cataloging rare specimens of coral in Hawaii. I also would try to explain how it was actually the rise of monotheistic religion on an empire wide scale that lead to advancements in scientific knowledge, method, and metaphysical assumptions about reality (like the nature of cause and effect). But it never worked. Hopefully this video will and does help. But since empirical, historical, and testimonial evidence from surveys of scientists didn’t work for me, maybe it won’t for Tyson.

Also see this article from the NCSE: http://ncse.com/rncse/18/2/do-scientists-really-reject-god

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