Geoff's Miscellany

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1 ESV)

If the stories of John’s gospel were in circulation, then the idea that Jesus’ words were life were circulating about. Similarly, we know from Paul’s letters that the gospel message itself was often referred as “the word of [insert synechdoche for Christ here].” The point being that one of the important background factors in John 1:1-18 is the background of the gospel message and the language about it.

Here is an excerpt from a sermon I preached on Matthew 7:1-5 about two years ago. Jim West reminded me of it.

Jesus and Judgment Priorities for a loving and challenging community:

Stop judging, so that you won't be judged, because the way that you judge others will be the way that you will be judged, and you will be evaluated by the standard with which you evaluate others. "Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when the beam is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:1-5 Author's Translation)"

What it does not mean:

David Foster Wallace, in a commencement speech, This is Water, observed this:

“Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master…

“…if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.”

Anyway, I was listening to his speech in order to get ready for a class discussion over it for some rhetoric students when I heard this song by Modest Mouse (there is an explicit lyric contained within):

One of the greatest difficulties with writing anything is the desire to say too much.

I’ve known many people who think that there is no way they can write a 3-5 page paper about topic X.

In my own experience, even the most concise summary of opposing views, connected issues, potential inferences from available data, practical suggestions for further study, and speculation as to applications of discovered data typically entail the longest and most boring type of prose. There is no way around it. The hardest part of writing is knowing what not to say. Writer’s block may happen with fiction, but with non-fiction the only block is the paralyzing feeling of not being sure where the evidence leads or being afraid to say one thing because other things must then be left out.

How should Christians respond to public irreverence toward Jesus?

What I mean by this is not, “how should we feel?” We have very little control over this.

I mean, “Should we petition, riot, whine, or write scathing commentary?”

In Matthew’s gospel we read this:

Matthew 12:31-32 ESV  Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. (32)  And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

As Christians who rightly believe that Jesus loves us, that his death and resurrection have reconciled us to God, and who find in Christ the highest example of exemplary human character we might feel upset if Jesus is portrayed negatively in art or insulted. Yet, he saw it coming and was prepared to forgive those who did it. We should do the same.

One of my chief interests in philosophy has always been epistemology. I even wrote a really bad paper in high school about whether or not one could know religious truths (it has thankfully been lost to the sands of time). For those who do not know, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines epistemology as

Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief.

Personal Speculation

The thing about sin is that it is so pernicious.

It is both alien and completely habitual and enculturated.

Sin is alien in the respect that it feels shameful and is shocking when we see it.

Sin is habitual and enculturated in that the beliefs, habits of thought, and habits of body that lead to sin are in the zeitgeist of every human culture.

A quasi-famous thought experiment which is intended to show why any particular religion is silly is the “Outsider Test for Faith.” I think it was developed by John Loftus.

I think that it is very clever. It may even be the best argument against Christianity I have ever heard. What I’ve enjoyed the most about the experiment is that it provides a rather exhilarating perspective on familiar ideas and habits.

When the book of Revelation is read by Christians today, it is often read as a pastiche of horrifying portents, full stop.

Whether this is a wise reading or not, I’ll leave that to others to determine. But it is, most certainly, a truncated and incomplete reading.

The author of Revelation actually makes this claim:

Revelation 19:10 ESV  Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God." For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. Another way to say this is that the point of prophecy is to make the message Jesus taught clear.

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.