The other day, I was discussing God’s eternity with my good friend, Chris. The most difficult aspect of the concept is determining how to speak coherently of God’s eternity while also confessing our faith in the Incarnation. Below are two paragraphs from Boethius that help us define God’s eternity in the first place. I read Boethius in undergrad, but I hadn’t thought about these passages until I was reminded of them by Eleonore Stump in her book on the thought of Thomas Aquinas:
To anybody who approaches parenting reflectively, the knowledge of personal imperfection should be obvious.
That being said, on ye olde Internet, many people become very offended by the parenting efforts, advice, or suggestions of others. I think I understand why.
We all know that we fall short as parents, but we desperately want to believe that we’re doing the best than can be done. Indeed, while it may or may not be true that our parenting is the best we can do, we certainly want to project as a fact (even to ourselves) that we’re doing the best that anybody could do. In other words, our own parenting is the ideal. Thus, we feign offense at any suggestion that we are not, as destrablizing our ideal implies that our very method of parenting and therefore our children are being attacked. It’s weird. I’ll try not to do it. My wife and I talked about the upcoming advice barrage. We’ll aim to learn what we can and ignore the rest. Being angry and resentful all the time is no way to live, parent, or enjoy yourself.
A friend recently asked about this topic, so I thought I'd give a sketch of my thoughts. I won't be citing any sources, but hopefully what I cite as evidence is either self-evident or easily obtainable.
One of the least noticed features of Genesis 4 is that, as far as we can tell, Abel and Cain invented the concept of sacrifice as a human mode of worshiping God.
What’s strange about it is that God accepts the sacrifices despite the apparent brutality (Abel kills lambs) and even simple waste (Cain burns up vegetables). The reason it doesn’t seem as strange to us is that sacrifice is so normal for the rest of the Bible. But it ought to strike us as strange because it was an absent concept in the first three pages of Genesis and it is, in the forms we see in Scripture, absent in our lives.
One of the many conceits of the modern era is that religion is believed precisely because it provides irrational comfort to those who refuse to see things as they are.
And while I have no doubt that many believe various religious dogmas for this purpose, it simply isn’t true that Christianity can be believed, by those who understand it, solely because it is comforting. Why? Here are a few reasons:
The federal income tax decreases liberty and gives government officials incentive to increase the scope and power of the federal government. Because we are a federal system in the United States, we need some form of funding for government operations. In my mind, funding that with tariffs is wiser and more constitutional. Essentially, I’m a protectionist because the debate comes down to: income tax vs tariffs or large vs small government.
I ran across Gavin De Becker's The Gift of Fear and picked it up. He quotes Nietzsche:
146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. - Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil aphorism 146
This line took me to Matthew 10:16. I wondered, "Why on earth does Jesus say 'wise as serpents'?" He could have said, "As wise as Solomon" or "clever as a fox." By the time of Jesus, the serpent of the Old Testament had pretty well become associated with Satan or some demonic personification of evil. So, why be clever in that way? I'm speculating below, I don't presume to know what Jesus was thinking, but things are written to be understood and "be wise as serpents" has a reference point. This means it was chosen for a reason.
Everybody wants to be accepted and approved of.
In fact, social rejection (or by inference, sense of rejection by God) can be just as jarring as physical pain.
There's a haunting scene in the gospels in which people respond negatively to Jesus, and while he has a theological explanation for the event at hand, he still asks Peter, "Will you leave also? (John 6:68)" To wish for acceptance is human and indeed.
Stuart Ritchie, Intelligence: All That Matters. (Hodder & Stoughton, Kindle Edition 2016).
As an educator and leader, I try to stay up to date on research into personality and human potential. But sometimes I cannot keep up with recent findings. Stuart Ritchie's new book helped fill the gaps.
Dr. Ritchie is a post-doc researcher at the University of Edinburgh where he is researching the development/decline of intelligence across the life span.
Here's the great commission from Matthew 28:18-20:
Matthew 28:18-20 ESV And Jesus came and said to them [the eleven disciples], “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (19) Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (20) teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”