"You too now begin to be a magician"
This Prayer of thanks just came out of my mouth today while walking to get the mail…..
Prayer of Thanks
01/08/2008
Thank you Lord for the break today
From the cold and nasty weather
As if you planned to remind us Lord
That winter’s don’t last forever
The formal definition of Philosophy can be stated as such: The Love of Knowledge (from the two Greek words philos and sophia). The material definition of Philosophy can be described as Lewis Pojman does:
[Philosophy] begins with wonder at the world, aims at truth and wisdom, and hopefully results in a life filled with meaning and moral goodness. It is centered in clarifying concepts and analyzing and constructing arguments regarding life’s perennial and perplexing questions. (Pojman, 2006).
Marcus Buckingham wrote a book called “Now Discover your strengths”, in this book, it was made evidently clear to me what I have almost always known, since becoming conscience of my own cognitive aberrations – I am truly a philosopher at heart.
Of my top 3 greatest strengths are Strategy, Learning and Context – I am driven by examining all portions of a problem and seeking the best and most intelligent strategy, constantly driven to learn and grow, taking a strong emphasis on the past to understand the context of every situation before looking towards the present in relation to the future.
Young children have this tendency to walk around in their lives and constantly ask “Why”, “Why”, “Why”; most adults (as I do) find this a rather annoying quality of children. However, I have never grown out of it myself.
From an early age, long before I was introduced to ideas like Descartes Method of Doubt, it has been my life’s goal to constantly question my own beliefs, question the teachings I have been given as a child, and to search for truth.
This quest has brought a lot of trouble and heart ache into my life, walking away from convictions that your friends and family hold to be true, because they are unsupportable and irrational can be a dark and lonely road, and yet, as was stated by Martin Luther when standing before the Church fathers at the Diet of Worms: “Unless I am convinced by holy scripture, or by evident reason… I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound” (Oberman, 2006).
Regardless of the problems in my life that the love of knowledge has caused, with this relentless drive in the pursuit of knowledge comes a greater appreciation and an awakened beauty, for each and every new concept that comes through and knocks down my world as I know it. As I grow and grasp, I am left with the sense of waking up on a summer’s morning inside of a hot and stuffy tent, unzipping the door and stepping out into fresh sunlight and to indescribable sights and sounds.
I will never cease to be awestruck through, in and around the world as it exists – I shall cling to the reformation motto of “Semper Reformanda” – and hope there never comes a time in my life that I am not ready, able and willing to learn and grow.
Philosophy to me is the foundation of my existence.
Oberman, H. A. (2006). Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Pojman, L. P. (2006). Philosophy : The Pursuit of Wisdom 5th Ed. Belmont: Holly J. Allen.
Premise 1) If everything is caused, then no one is free
Premise 2) Everything is caused
Therefore: No one is free
This statement is a valid, solid deductive argument. If you don’t agree with the conclusion, then you must disagree with one of the two premises.
I’m curious – what are your thoughts?
Why did the Greeks Analyze and Critique their religion?
Philosophy from its inception has always tried to answer the quintessential question “Why is there something, rather than nothing” as well as the famous question of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate “Quid est Veritas?” (What is truth?). Our reading also describes what it feels to be the ultimate philosophical question: “What is the nature of the cosmos” (Bishop, p. 45)
The Greek Philosophers like Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had within themselves what Philosopher’s many years later referred to as “our need to know God”. I think one of our strongest desires to know God, is to thus know ourselves. We want to understand God, because, as our creator, we are made in his image (so we are told in the book of Genesis) and the more we know about that image, the more we can understand about ourselves.
As Augustine of Hippo stated, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God (Augustine), and Blaise Pascal referenced what is often referred to as a “God shaped vacuum”, a space within ourselves that cannot be filled with anything other than an infinite and immutable object – namely God (Groothius, 2006).
Greek Philosophers had this insatiable desire to be filled with knowledge and understanding, but had at their disposal only a general revelation of the origins of humanity. They were, however, given this strong desire to seek out and study the nature of knowledge and the world around them.
It is interesting to me, to see many years later, the Apostle Paul walking into the Areopagus in Athens and using words from their own Philosophers, Epimenides and Aratus, to explain to them that they have this idea of God that has been placed in their minds through general revelation, and that if they truly want to know God, he is not far from any of them.
This is, as C.S. Lewis puts it in his book “Mere Christianity”,
God sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men.
The Greek Philosophers, therefore, I believe were analyzing and critiquing their religion to continue the ever relentless quest to answer the question “Quid Est Veritas?” which in bitter irony was the question asked of the man called Jesus of Nazareth, of which, he himself was the answer.
Augustine. (2002, 07 13). Confessions of St. Augustine Bishop of Hippo. Retrieved 12 07, 2007, from Leadership University: http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/augconfessions/bk1.html
Bishop, P. (2007). Adventures in the Human Spirit. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Groothius, D. (2006, 05 15). Incorrect Pascal Quotes. Retrieved 12 07, 2007, from The Constructive Curmudgeon: http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2006/05/incorrect-pascal-quotes.html
“We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed.” – C.S. Lewis (The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, pg. 54).
This poem identified within me, a rebirth. I was 18 and I was trying hard to break free from an overuse of marijuana. I was, the night that I penned this, standing in the parking lot of an Irving all night diner. I was alone, my head was foggy, but was slowly clearing up. I was remembering nights when I had been so drugged up that I could barely even breathe, I couldn’t think, I was ecstatic with fake joy, colors and sounds all swirling together, hallucinations, as I sat and watched my life literally flash before my eyes . The silence was deafening.
I was running from life, I was running from pain, I was trying to cover all the hurt that I had, but no matter where I went, even if I went into a house, and closed and locked the doors behind me, the pain always seemed to find me. And in the end, when the morning sun came up, as my head began to clear, as I climbed outside of my wooden box of death, I would drive back to my house, to once again live another day as if I was just a typical, normal person, on the outside….
So, here is the poem…
Run Run Run away!
Where ya gonna go?
Find a rock as big as sea
And cover life from woe.
Silence roams upon the earth
Knocking door to door,
Bringing deadly winter chills
Oozing through the floor.
Fleeing life and French-kissed pain
Driving out into the night
Placing mellow in your heart
Holding on for infernal flight.
Screaming, soaring,
Ecstatic moon
Covering your sorrow
Climbing free from mildew waste –
Cringing in sun’s ‘morrow.
Sinking freely in the water
Rising from the stone –
Open eyes, and blinding light,
Marching on towards home.
©1996 Jediah Logiodice
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I love The Road not Taken…. however, here is the question, did he believe he took the right road?
Herein lies the enigma of human existence, the game of “What If”. I had a young lady that I was in love with, to the point that I felt like I would die living without here (even now, almost 15 years later, it still pains my heart to think of). She quoted this, the last day I remember spending time with her. She was a year older than I, and going off to college, she felt that it was time for her to step out into the world, and try the road less taken. She had one road, that seemed safe, it was the road that seemed more traveled, but she wanted to take the road less taken.
And here, Robert says “I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back” – he made a choice, and regretfully knew that he would never be able to come back to that point in his life where he could make this same choice again.
And he continues on, “I shall be telling this with a sigh” – and I believe the heart of this sigh is, he still wonders, what would have happened if he took the road more taken. He never really tells if he regretted it or not, he just says that his decision made all the difference – which is the beauty of this poem – he leaves it to each and every reader, to look into their own heart, and their own experience, and answer this question for themselves… “Do I regret the road I have taken”.
Notice the title of the poem – it’s not The Road I Took, it’s the Road Not Taken – I think that in our lives, we will all be plagued by the road we didn’t take as we wonder “What If” – but that’s a question we’ll never have answered.
I wish I had written this poem, it’s so full of heart, and pain and hope!
I’m dressing up like Christ today
I’m walking out the door
I don’t quite fit inside his skin
I’m lacking so much more
Outside you see this humble soul
That cares and gives and loves
Inside, alas, so much is bad
It’s stained, it takes and shoves
Each day I put this costume on
To do the things He’d do
I walk the walk, I talk the talk
Yet, things still show right through
But every day I put him on,
I feel a bit more sure,
As passes time, the thing I find
His being covers more
I wonder if I shrink to fit
The skin he let me wear
Or if it grows to cover those
Places that I’m so bare
But what I’ve found, as time winds down
My image shines so bright
For by his power, in my last hour
He seals me with his might.
Less of me, and more of Christ!
©2007 Jediah Logiodice
I’m going over to UMF tomorrow night with Bill (the pastor @ our church). He has offered, in conjunction with 2 other evangelical Christians to sit on a panel to allow unbelievers to come ask their questions, their concerns, or even to attack (if they so choose) the historical Jesus and Christianity.
I can’t imagine putting myself on the firing line like that – it must take a lot of faithful expectations that God will provide the answers (And he indeed gave that promise to the apostles when they come before kings and rulers in authority – how much more so would he for the common people like you and I).
In knowing Bill, the purpose is not to argue, but it is to help expose people to Christ, that would normally never set foot in a Church.
So many people are afraid to say that the bible is open to interpretations, I believe it is. It also seems clear to me that there is only one ‘right’ interpretation, but equally clear, that no one has that one interpretation in its entirety. I might be right about one point, but just as wrong about another point.
To me, I believe the bible makes it clear that it’s not about being perfect, it’s about learning, and growing from each other, changing and maturing to be more like Christ would ask us to be (The law and the prophets are summed up in two things, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and Soul, and Love your neighbor as yourself). Lewis, in his book “Mere Christianity” makes the statement that if there are those that have chosen a different ‘denomination’ then you, and you believe they are wrong, then you are to pray for them, and love them, for even our enemy we are told to pray and love all the more!
With all that being said though, I think it’s important to have a set of rules for interpreting it, a correct Hermeneutics as it’s called. If we don’t agree on the rules for interpreting English, how then can we agree on what an English passage says – the same with the bible, unless there is a scholarly agreement on how to interpret the bible, then how can we know for sure, what the passage says, either in the context of when it was written, or in the context of today’s day and age.
And I disagree with some who say that the rules for biblical interpretation are “How it sounds to me”. I think the Spirit’s working is definitely part of it – but God never worked in one individual. Even Christ found himself a party of believers to surround himself with and preach the word. Christ says “Where two or more gather in my name, there I will be”. When Paul talks about the gifts of the Spirit he makes it plain that the gifts were spread out to many believers, so that together, they may work together to display and proclaim the word of God and encourage each other for more noble things.
I think the solo scriptura view is false [That is much different than the Reformed view of Sola Scriptura] (that is, solo scriptura is the view that the bible is the only authority (me the bible and God), solA scriptura is the view that the bible holds the final authority, but that God has revealed himself in many different fashions throughout all of history) – God gave us history, he gave us great thinkers, he gave us revelation about himself spread throughout history, more than just in the bible (Romans said what may be known about God is plain, because God has made it plain).
C.S. Lewis calls it, in his book “Mere Christianity” – “Good Dreams”, that God throughout history has spread himself and the knowledge of himself throughout the entire world, so that those who seek him will find him, although he is not far from them. In Athens on Mars Hill, Paul says, that they are serving the idea of God, but they do not even know the real God, that the Greeks call him Zeus (His reference to the poets citing “In him we move and breath and have our being” is a reference to a poem written to Zeus), but he says that he will declare to them the real God that they are speaking of.
God clearly wants us to rely on his Spirit not just in the here and now (which is another false pretence that many Christians think that our generation is better, smarter and more informed than previous generations) – but he wants us to rely on his workings throughout history. To read, and learn, and understand the decisions and disagreements throughout history, and use them to help build and understand what it is that God wants us to learn.
One thing that Lewis said is that belief is Jesus’ death and resurrection is the pivotal thing of Christianity. That understanding Christianity (more specifically Jesus’ death), is like understanding Vitamins and minerals when we eat. We ate before we understood vitamins and minerals, we eat even now with our understanding of Vitamins and minerals, and if someday we find that our whole view of vitamins and minerals was wrong – we will continue to eat. We can still be nourished by the vitamins and minerals in our food, without understanding exactly how it nourishes us. We can be saved as Christians, without understanding the in-depth technical details of what actually happened when Christ died and was resurrected.
I think this vitamin view can be applied to so many other things in Christianity. True, we don’t intentionally disregard God’s word, if we don’t like it, or want to do something different, but there is no reason that we should fear that if we get something wrong, because we couldn’t understand it that he is going to condemn us to an eternity in hell.
I’m finishing up a book right now, a book by C.S. Lewis called “Mere Christianity” – I would HIGHLY recommend getting a copy and reading it. Lewis was not a theologian, and he speaks in such plain terms about what “mere Christianity” is, apart from all the things that people have tried to make it into. It’s AMAZING!