Geoff's Miscellany

Bruce Charlton is one of the brightest bloggers I've ever come across. He's also brilliant off the internet. He posts interesting, though not always totally convincing essays on a variety of topics: evolution, Mormonism, Christian spirituality, etc. He recently posted about exercise and fitness. This is important for him, I wager, due to his interest in evolution and civilization.

He ends his posting, characterizing people who lift weights thus:

Nowadays, the local equivalent are the vastly bulky androgen-using power-weight-trainers, maybe working as 'bouncers' (door security) - who are fit for lifting weights, and strong at lifting weights (and presumably also at shoving and hitting people).

Or perhaps they are sportsmen - who are fit for their sport - strong at whatever the sport requires.

The issues related to Calvinism, libertarian free will, open theism, and other such concepts have long since become less interesting to me as controversies. The concepts of human responsibility, God's grace, God's foreknowledge, etc are still important as matters of logic and divine revelation. My problem with the topics as issues is more an emotional or temperamental issue. Nevertheless, I made an observation several years ago that I've always kept in the back of my mind. I'm sharing it because of a strange association of several ideas that is not logically necessary:

A classmate of mine this summer turned out not only to be a brother in Christ, but also a Thomist. We had a very edifying discussion a few weeks ago about the transcendentals. He said that at one level truth, goodness, and beauty as such are the same thing and really at the ultimate level, because of God's simplicity, they are God just like being, as such, is God. But at the level of created reality and things that change, he noted, truth, goodness, and beauty are ways of talking about order.

Tonight I had an interesting discussion about horror movies...though I rather did most of the talking.

The thing about horror movies is that I've always liked the genre because the stakes are high and often the plot devices (magic, technology, absurd levels of psychopathy, etc) are too over the top to be truly capable of influencing the way you think about reality. Thus, a horror film or book is one of the few pieces of entertainment that allows me to experience feelings I don't often have. It's not that I'm not easily frightened, it's that I live within civilization and I've rarely been afraid. Truthfully, any adventures I've have in the wilderness or with the unpleasantries of crime and violence have all happened so suddenly that any type of fear came later.

Another popular myth in evangelicalism is the idea that Jesus died to obviate our need for righteousness. This is a dangerous half truth. It is perpetuated in silly bumper stickers, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” popular sermons (I teach at a Christian school and students bring this one up a lot…it’s coming form somewhere), and even in a Derek Webb song where he sings:

I am thankful that I'm incapable Of doing any good on my own I'm so thankful that I'm incapable Of doing any good on my own

Now, it could be the case that brother Derek it thankful that he knows that he is incapable. But it seems rather that he’s thankful that the results of the fall are so comprehensively deleterious. Anyhow, back to the myth: false, untrue, silly, not thought out, out of sync with scripture, tradition, and sound reason:

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory.

("How Deep the Father's Love for Us" by Stuart Townend, I think.)

This concept appears in a great deal of sermons on the atonement and it seems to revolve around this logic:

1. God cannot look at sin. (Hab 1:13)
2. He who knew no sin (Jesus), became sin... (2 Corinthians 5:21)
3. Therefore God could not look at Jesus on the cross. (Q.E.D.)

The other source for the view comes from Jesus' cry on the cross, "Why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34).

The medieval church utilized a four-fold system of Biblical interpretation which they labeled the quadriga. It attempted to interpret the Scripture in four senses:

1. Literal- This is the meaning of the passage in the context of the book that contains it.
2. Allegorical- This would be the significance of the passage as a type or allegory for the gospel or some aspect of the Christian life.
3. Tropological- This is the moral sense of the passage, describing how it might apply to the believer today.
4. Anagogical- This is the sense pertaining to the last day and the glories of the new heavens and the new earth.

1. Literal - This is the meaning of the passage in the context of the book that contains it.
2. Canonical Meaning - This explains the passage in its salvation historical context, how it fits into the gospel story, and whether/how it is fulfilled in the New Testament. This also compares the book to other perspectives in the canon. If the collectors of the canon included Chronicles and Samuel, they certainly knew about the utterly different perspectives on David. Thus, it would seem, that this level of significance might compare the historical utility or the rhetorical place of each perspective in the life of ancient Israel and even for the Christian today.
3. Tropological - This explains how the passage is morally relevant to the person today. Perhaps it is a negative example, such as Abraham's cowardice. It could also be a positive example, such as Paul's custom of working with his hands. I suppose here too, the use of imagination is important. Believers can see themselves in their struggles as somebody whose faith is akin to those listed in Hebrews 11. Thus, such figures, in their flaws and quests that seem irrelevant to us, become types for our own struggles to conform ourselves to Christ. Another example might be preaching Jeremiah's message of repentance and then immediately showing how his message was taken up by John the Baptist and Jesus.
4. Eschatological - This is a further exploration of the text's significance in salvation history, but with a view toward the eschaton. So, you see in stories about God's judgment (even ones that make no sense considering the New Testament picture of God) a picture of a final righting of wrongs on the last day.

Pro 15:14-19 The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly. (15) All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. (16) Better is a little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble with it. (17) Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it. (18) A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. (19) The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway.

One of the amazing things about the world is how seemingly disparate things are connected in profound ways. One of these connections is between sodium bicarbonate (household baking soda) and intense physical exertion.

I use Sodium Bicarbonate for my heartburn when it comes up (less common these days thanks to eating less carbs), but I never would have guessed that it functioned as an ergogenic aid.

But. these studies indicate that it does:

Avery and I don't have any children except for a college student who rents from us are folks from the Sunday school class we joke about having adopted. But, many of our peers have children. So, she wrote this article that might be helpful for people in a similar situation. Go read it.