Geoff's Miscellany

Several years ago, I read a few volumes of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. During that period of my life I wasn’t sleeping much and I probably read too quickly. Anyhow, I’m trying to just read 10 pages a day now. I’ll eventually finish, or maybe I won’t. Reading the Bible and doing what Jesus says is better, but Barth is useful for preachers because he helps build the habit of comparing the church’s preaching back to Jesus. In other words, he reminds pastors to go back to Jesus and stay on task.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday to talk to him about, among other things, a video game he is programming. He mentioned this thought experiment that came to him in the process:

Every hypothetical universe that would allegedly be as good or better than this one has a creator, even completely random ones created by rolling dice to determine constraints (for role playing games and so-on). Even hypothetical universes imagined for the sake of thinking about multi-verse theory are imagined. Thus, anybody who finds the argument from suffering compelling, but accepts various writers, thinkers, and other hypothetical universe constructors to be good or real is inconsistent.

Also, he noted that this isn’t meant to be a proof of any sort, but a thought experiment to determine whether or not a world created in which suffering is conceivable or even necessary is necessarily created by an evil being.

One of the staples of Baptist piety is that the Lord’s Supper is “only a symbol” or “just a symbol.” So, every time that gospels are quoted saying,

Mark 14:22-24 ESV  And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." (23)  And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it.  (24)  And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

I understand why Baptists do that, but I think that they’re mistaken in so doing.

Everything happens for a reason.

The phrase above is trivially true. Every thing that happens certainly has a cause. But it is often seen as a piece of centrally true theological reasoning. You lock your keys in your car, "God did it for a reason." You get gas from over-eating, "It happened for a reason." You make a bunch of bad decisions that hurt others and famously, "I learned something from it, therefore it must have happened for a reason."

The argument between Arminians (this is how it is spelled btw) and Calvinists will perhaps continue until the return of Christ. Nevertheless, despite the debate never being resolved, I do think that some clarifications can be made. For instance, Reknew ministry (an open theist ministry, one of whose core beliefs is that the future does not exist and is only potentially known by God), recently contributed to the argument by posting quotes from Roger Olson, Greg Boyd (the pastor who helms the ministry), and Benjamin Corely. The quote by Olsen is below:

Q. 22 .What then must a Christian believe?

A. All that is promised us in the gospel, a summary of which is taught us in the articles of the Apostles' Creed, our universally acknowledged confession of faith.

The catechism goes on to list the promises of the movements of the Creed. It is very helpful. I would not formulate many things the same way the catechism does, but it is deeply edifying. I highly recommend a read through: