Why Did God Create The World?

It is one of those odd sweeping questions of idealistic youth which I've never really outgrown.

Today I cannot remember what caused the original fascination with the question. During college I think it might have gained some momentum from the ideas of the creation theologians of Europe whom Bo Reicke once told me about. I've still got those books . . . in a box somewhere. I'll have to dig them out and look at them again.

I do remember thinking at the time that an appropriate theological answer had to be "love," but every time I discussed this with serious people, the discussion, I think by mutual perception, always ended up feeling kind of, well, corny! 

The trouble was I couldn't exactly nail down any sources which propounded that answer, nor could I really point to a fully worked out history of the idea. I dabbled with it for a while, and like so many ideas and enthusiasms of youth, it ceased to preoccupy my attention eventually.

And then I happened to read this today and all that came flooding back. The selection finally gives me an historical fix on the problem, from an essay on the trinitarian theology of Jonathan Edwards, by one Daniel M. Harrell, here:

The infinite happiness of God in community generates a delight that cannot be contained (for then God would be less happy, a logical impossibility). God's love radiates outward, emanating forth like a fountain. Edwards preached:

There is in heaven this fountain of love, this eternal three in one, set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it. There this glorious God is manifested and shines forth in full glory, in beams of love; there the fountain overflows in streams and rivers of love and delight, enough for all to drink at, and to swim in, yea, so as to overflow the world as it were with a deluge of love.

It was this unhindered, radiating deluge of love that resulted in creation. Trinitarian love is manifest in the interrelatedness of creation—nothing exists in pure independence. Trinitarian love is manifest in redemption that ushers saints into participation in God's overflowing happiness, a happiness that extends infinitely into eternity.

As it turns out, Edwards was also responsible for another aspect of Christian theological thinking which prepared the way for the psychological-social interpretation of the Christian life as "relational," a concept derived directly from his conception of the trinity and necessarily following from it. It is uncanny how in Edwards' conception of the trinity the only begotten son of God is a kind of perfect projection of the infinitely perfect thoughts of the father, which conception has an interesting bearing on what people mean when they say they have a personal relationship with Jesus. Is he not also a projection of our own minds, mediated by the thoughts we have of him, absorbed through the Bible?

In retrospect it's no wonder that the interdisciplinary department in which I studied religion so long ago with experts in Hinduism, Confucianism, Judaism and Islam failed me on this one. The Great Awakening wasn't exactly their forte.

Looks like I have some work cut out for me. At least I know where to start.

(originally posted June 2011)  

"N" Raises a Din

 

 

Vain show and noise intoxicate the brain

Begin with giddiness, and end in pain.

-- Edward Young

The Lifeblood of the Nation

"Money, the lifeblood of the nation,

Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,

Unless a proper circulation

Its motion and its heat maintains."

-- Jonathan Swift

In a dull stream, which moving slow . . .

 

In a dull stream, which moving slow,

You hardly see the current flow;

When a small breeze obstructs the course,

It whirls about for want of force,

And in its narrow circle gathers

Nothing but chaff, and straws, and feathers:

The current of a female mind stops thus,

and turns with ev'ry wind;

Thus whirling round, together draws

Fools, fops, and rakes, for chaff and straws.

-- Jonathan Swift, 1713

Mugged By "M" I Am

 

 

I'm stopp'd by all the fools I meet,

And catechis'd in ev'ry street.

-- Jonathan Swift

Jesus, Greek Speaker

From Tom Wright in The Times Literary Supplement, here:

Greek was as ubiquitous in Jesus’s world as English is in much of the world today, and there is every reason to suppose that Jesus was more or less fluent in it (thus able, for instance, to argue with Pontius Pilate).

Pace the partisans of Aramaic and Latin.

The Illusions of "L"

 

Strange coz'nage! none would live past years again,

Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;

And from the dregs of life think to receive

What the first sprightly running could not give.

-- John Dryden

Did They Use The Parking Brake or The Brake Pedal?

Nitwit headline writer:

When It Came To Elite Opinion on Religion, Hitch Didn't Challenge It. He Affirmed It.

So Michael Lind for Salon here:

[A] British diplomat told me that he was astonished at the reputation Hitchens had attained in the U.S.: “In Britain we think of him as a gossip columnist.” ...

Hitchens was affirming rather than challenging an elite consensus when, on behalf of atheism, he mocked religious believers as not merely mistaken but contemptible and moronic. The religious are despised and dreaded by upscale Americans, and their British court jester could say what they dare not say themselves — although candidate Barack Obama came close in 2008, when he psychoanalyzed the white working class for the benefit of billionaire donors behind closed doors: “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

The First Christmas

"God shrank himself down into a little baby."

That's more or less verbatim, from the St. Matthew Lutheran Church Christmas Eve service at 7:30 PM, on Cascade Road, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

We also had a remote-controlled flying shark, a children's message, a sermon, the Lord's Supper, and a candlelight closing, which the choir absolutely slaughtered. You had to sing along really loudly just in self defense against "Peace, Peace" because there was no peace.

Thank God there wasn't a baptism, too, and a wedding thrown in or we would have been watching Albert Finney in Scrooge (1970) and eating pizza at midnight.

It reminded me of the time in Colorado we heard a sermon in a Lutheran church which likened the incarnation to a space shuttle launch: "Jesus blasted off the throne of God and came to earth."

"Honey, God shrank himself!" 

Christmas is Vanity: Had St. Paul Known of Christmas, Would He Have Approved?

"[H]ow can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain."

-- Gal. 4:9 ff.

"One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike."

-- Rom. 14:5

"Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ."

-- Col. 2:16 f.

That said, and quite apart from the well-known atheist war on Christmas, there is now some competition, or is it help?, from a small band of Christian extremists in Arkansas who think we're all guilty of idolatry in celebrating it.

Video here. 

To Judge or Not to Judge

"Then let us no more pass judgment on one another."

-- Romans 14:13

"For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?"

-- 1 Corinthians 5:12

The Virgin Birth Claim Was Already Strong Enough To Be Attacked By The Time Of John

Jesus saith unto them,

"If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father.

Then said they to him,

"We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, [even] God."

Jesus said unto them,

"If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me."

-- John 8:39-42

Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking

A fool layeth open his folly.

-- Proverbs 13:16 

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.   

-- Proverbs 17:28

A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards. 

-- Proverbs 29:11

A Knar of "K"

 

An honest man may take a knave's advice;

But idiots only may be cozen'd twice.

-- John Dryden

A Jabot of "J"

 

 

From this last toil again what knowledge flows?

Just as much, perhaps, as shows

That all his predecessor's rules

Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools.

-- Matthew Prior

Iambs for "I"

 

On ev'ry thorn delightful wisdom grows,

In ev'ry stream a sweet instruction flows;

But some untaught o'erhear the whisp'ring rill,

Inspite of sacred leisure, blockheads still.

-- Edward Young

Do not your alms before men, to be seen of them

The headline at mlive.com/news/grand-rapids reads:

For third day, strangers anonymously spend thousands at Kmart to pay off lay-away items.

A Ha'Penny for "H"

Half-wits are fleas, so little and so light,

We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.

-- John Dryden

A Gander at "G"

 

Mighty dulness crown'd,

shall take through Grub-street her triumphant round; 

And her Parnassus glancing o'er at once,

Behold a hundred sons, and each a dunce.

-- Alexander Pope

The Foppery of "F"

 

Fools to popular praise aspire

Of publick speeches, which worse fools admire;

While, from both benches, with redoubled sounds,

Th' applause of lords and commoners abounds.

-- John Dryden

The Effrontery of "E"

I lose my patience, and I own it too,

Where works are censur'd, not as bad, but new;

While, if our elders break all reason's laws,

Those fools demand not pardon, but applause.

-- Alexander Pope

What if our many questions remain unanswered after we die?

How many times did we go to bed without answers, and still our mothers and fathers loved us all the same, throughout the night and the next morning? And for days and weeks and months and years, seemingly without end, until one day our parents came to an end, and we were left alone with our questions.

They took care of us at all times whether we deserved it or not, fed us and clothed us, and protected our going out and our coming in.

Isn't God something like that? Has He not loved us all similarly, but without ceasing?

And aren't we going to be always something like that, always children, whether alive or dead, because our very being is completely contingent upon our Maker?

What should change? Why should the next world mean any more, or any less, than that?

I hear you all grumbling, you sons of God, you, but it is not born of faith. It is born of presumption.

We cannot be equal with God.

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

The knowing, as usual, has been highly overrated.

τίμα τὸν πατέρα σου καὶ τὴν μητέρα ἵνα εὖ σοι γένηται καὶ ἵνα μακροχρόνιος γένῃ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς τῆς ἀγαθῆς ἧς κύριος ὁ θεός σου δίδωσίν σοι


-- Exodus 20:12

The Depths of "D"

 

 

They damn themselves, nor will my muse descend

To clap with such who fools and knaves commend.

-- John Dryden

A Chamfer for "C"

 

Changelings and fools of heav'n, and thence shut out,

Wildly we roam in discontent about.

-- John Dryden

John's Jesus Sometimes Talks as if He Weren't a Jew Himself, Nor His Disciples

"Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you."

-- John 13:33

Paul The Jew Blames The Jews For Jesus' Death

"For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they [have] of the Jews:

Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men."

-- 1 Thessalonians 2:14f.

Anti-Judaism In John Extends Artlessly Even "to the Jews who had believed in him"

Jhn 8:31 Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,

Jhn 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

Jhn 8:33 They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, 'You will be made free'?"

Jhn 8:34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.

Jhn 8:35 The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever.

Jhn 8:36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Jhn 8:37 I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you.

Jhn 8:38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."

Jhn 8:39 They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did,

Jhn 8:40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this is not what Abraham did.

Jhn 8:41 You do what your father did." They said to him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God."

Jhn 8:42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.

Jhn 8:43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.

Jhn 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Jhn 8:45 But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

Jhn 8:46 Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?

Jhn 8:47 He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."

Jhn 8:48 The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?"

Jhn 8:49 Jesus answered, "I have not a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.

Jhn 8:50 Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it and he will be the judge.

Jhn 8:51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death."

Jhn 8:52 The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, 'If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.'

Jhn 8:53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?"

Jhn 8:54 Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God.

Jhn 8:55 But you have not known him; I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep his word.

Jhn 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad."

Jhn 8:57 The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?"

Jhn 8:58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

Jhn 8:59 So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

"B" Bawls

 

When we are born, we cry, that we are come

To this great stage of fools.

-- William Shakespeare

The Alchemy of 'A'

 

For fools are stubborn in their way,

As coins are harden'd by th' allay.

-- Samuel Butler, Hudibras

Just fooling around

 

 

Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

-- Matthew 5:22

Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? ... Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?

-- Matthew 23:17, 19

 

Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? 

 

-- Luke 11:40 

 

But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 

 

-- Luke 12:20 

 

Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

-- Luke 24:25

 

Behold, thou art called a Jew ... an instructor of the foolish ...

 

-- Romans 2:17, 20

 

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. 

 

-- I Corinthians 3:18  

 

We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.

-- I Corinthians 4:10

 

For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise. 

 

-- II Corinthians 11:19  

The Battle of the Acolytes of Intellect

Hey! How you doin'?

"Benedict XVI ranks by my reckoning as the best mind on the planet."

-- David Goldman, alias Spengler of Asia Times, seen here

I'm wonderful.

"[T]his is a guy whose IQ is off the charts — I mean you cannot say that he is anything but a very serious and capable leader and — you know — You and I have talked about this for years … [Obama's] probably the smartest guy ever to become President."

-- Historian Michael Beschloss, transcription here

How About Abortion, For Instance, Rod Dreher?

The handwringing continues, here:

"Still, I wonder what evils I, and you, are overlooking now that our children or grandchildren will one day wonder, 'How on earth did you sit there and not do a thing?'"


A million or more die each year in America, and you wonder what you are overlooking?

On the Death Penalty in France

"The death penalty still exists in France, but only for the victims!"

-- Marine Le Pen

Who Knew? The Mormons Are Into Tithing BIG TIME.

As discussed in amusing detail, here:

Ernest D. Wilkinson . . . upon assuming the presidency of BYU in the 1950s, was outraged that some BYU professors paid only a partial tithing, and some paid none at all.

Benedict in Erfurt: Is That An Objective Genitive, or a Subjective?

Seen here:

 “It was the error of the Reformation that for the most part we could only see what divided us.”

Why wasn't it, why isn't it, the error of the Papacy? As if division were the most mortal of sins. "For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you" (1 Cor.11:19).

Ask you, what provocation I have had?

The strong antipathy of good to bad.

When truth, or virtue, an affront endures,

Th' affront is mine, my friend,

and should be yours.

-- Alexander Pope


(I love quoting Pope to the Pope).

Kentucky Baptist Association Boots Queers in August, Calvinists in October

There's hope for the world yet.

Story here:

Frank Page, head of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, recently identified the growing influence of Calvinism -- also called Reformed Theology or the Doctrines of Grace -- as one of the biggest challenges facing the nation’s second-largest faith group.

According to a 2007 study by LifeWay Research, about one in 10 Southern Baptist pastors considered themselves to be five-point Calvinists. Among recent seminary graduates the rate nearly tripled, to 29 percent. Page, a former SBC president elected as the Executive Committee’s CEO last year, said he hears often from churches struggling with the divide between Calvinist and non-Calvinist -- also known as Arminian -– theology.

Debating Mormonism Isn't Remotely Close To Imposing A Religious Test For Public Office

Unless you happen to believe that discussion of religion is speech without protection from the First Amendment.

The question isn't "Can Mitt Romney be president?", because he was born here and is at least 35 years of age. He meets the constitution's test.

But politics imposes a different kind of test than asking "Can he?"

The political question is "Should he be president?"

Some people won't vote for Mitt Romney because he's a flip-flopper on some important issues. Some won't vote for him because he supported TARP. Others won't vote for him because he's a Mormon. Still others won't because of RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

But probably the largest group which won't be voting for Romney will be Democrats, simply because Romney is a Republican. But you won't hear the media's C-students bemoaning that as a stupid reason not to vote for someone.

Ken Connor attempts to clarify the matter here:

"[T]he question remains, 'Are Mormons Christian?' Since Mormons assert that they are, isn't this a fair subject of public debate? Since religious truth claims have eternal consequences, isn't it in the public interest to examine the merits of those claims? The election of a Mormon president will likely do more than any other single event to mainstream Mormonism into American life, with all of the consequences attendant thereto. That being the case, why should the claims of that religion be any more immune from scrutiny than those of any other religion?

"America will be a poorer country when we reach the point where discussions about religion and our eternal destiny can no longer be part of the public dialogue."

Timothy Dalrymple Is A Hypocrite and Terribly Confused

Timothy Dalrymple takes a break from baby care to say he wants it both ways over the characterization of Mormonism as a cult, hurling the term himself at the evangelical followers of Gov. Rick Perry who use it of Mitt Romney's religion, here.

Dalrymple thinks because the term conjures up notions of Koolaid drinkers in the jungle in the popular imagination that Perry's followers shouldn't use it about Mormons:

"[T]he American people associate 'cult' with poisoned Koolaid and the Branch Davidians and Charles Manson.  The implication is that Mitt Romney is a cult member, and we all know cultists are unstable, weird, irrational and subject to control."

Then why speak of "the cult of Rick Perry"?

And why allow the term's meaning to be dictated by common parlance after insisting that words have meanings and people cannot define the truth for themselves?

But my favorite part is this:

Mormons uphold the personal, family and social values I hold dear. ... Mormons have stood fast on abortion and the definition of marriage.

Oh sure. That's why Utah alone still tolerates about 40,000 polygamists, with still more in other western states. Mormons insist those polygamists aren't Mormon, having disavowed polygamy in 1904. Funny then that Mormons get so upset when Christians insist Mormonism isn't Christian.

Utah has a culture of polygamy because of Mormonism. America has a culture of monogamy because of Christianity. What we worship determines who we are and what we are like.

Christianity is a sect of Judaism rejected by the parent. Mormonism is a sect of Christianity rejected by the parent. Good parents know how to say No to their wayward children.

But that no longer seems important to people like Timothy Dalrymple.

Good luck with those diapers, Tim.

Like Evangelicals, Roman Catholics and Methodists Have Problems With Mormonism

As reported here:

For Christians, calling yourself a Christian while not believing that God has always existed as the triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is as inconceivable.

This is not simply a conservative evangelical Christian view. Methodists have said "the LDS Church is not a part of the historic, apostolic tradition of the Christian faith." Even Roman Catholics (hardly conservative Protestants) don't recognize LDS baptism.

The problem is that, in America, everybody's an expert: If you say you are xyz, you are xyz. Even though you most definitely, unequivocally, are not xyz.

Russell Kirk once said that Christianity wasn't a failure, it's just that it has never really been tried. Quite the condemnation, that, on Paul, Augustine and Luther among others, when you think about it. Or on Thomas Aquinas.

I'll go him one better, though, since fools rush in where angels fear to tread: Jesus had no disciples in his lifetime, and he's never had any since. He just hasn't been around to correct the record which states otherwise.

At most one might venture to say that Jesus has had imitators who took themselves almost as seriously as he took himself.

But apart from that opinionated air, it is probably more useful for the issue at hand to accept at face value the early observation that "Christian" was in truth an epithet applied by outsiders. It was not originally a term of self-description:

"And in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians" (Acts 11:26).

Jews in particular understood believers in Jesus like Paul to be members of a sect of Judaism, a cult if you will, which was not officially recognized, in a way similar to how Christians today do not recognize Mormonism, which borrows from Christianity quite freely and builds something new on it.

Interestingly enough, the self-designation which Paul mentions in referring to this fact is follower of "The Way":

"But this I admit to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law or written in the prophets" (Acts 24:14).

That self-description goes back directly to the teaching of Jesus:

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide [is] the gate, and broad [is] the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:13f.).

For Paul, those belonging to "the few" became an increasingly larger number beyond just the lost sheep of the house of Israel:


"Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into [any] city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 10:5f).

But there Paul did go, and the rest, as they say, is history. Which I think goes a little way toward explaining religious innovation in our own time, Mormon innovation included.

William McGurn Must Be A Shill For The Homosexual Lobby

To William McGurn for The Wall Street Journal, Christian evangelical objections to the heretical theology of Mitt Romney's Mormonism are equivalent to incidents of homosexual intimidation and violence against Mormonism, except McGurn never mentions the words "homosexual" or "gay" when referencing these attacks, all of which were committed against Mormons by queers, and queer lovers, not Christians, here:

[F]ar more alarming for Mormons are the attacks on Mormon property and Mormon livelihoods just three years ago that registered barely a peep among the same media now so obsessed with Mr. Jeffress. These attacks happened during the 2008 campaign in California over Proposition 8, a state referendum to ban same-sex marriage. When opponents of the measure found that Mormons had contributed heavily to its passage, ugly attacks followed.

LDS temples in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City received envelopes filled with white powder, provoking an anthrax scare. A Book of Mormon was burned outside an LDS chapel in Denver. Other Mormon chapels were vandalized.

Individuals fared even worse. The head of the Los Angeles Film Festival was forced to resign after his contribution was made public. Ditto for a fellow Mormon who ran the California Musical Theater. A former gold medalist who served as U.S. chef de mission for the 2012 Olympic Games in London likewise stepped down. A 67-year-old woman who had donated just $100 stopped working at the restaurant her mother owned to spare it further protest.

If William McGurn had any integrity, he'd admit that Republicans are giving Mormon candidates more than a fair hearing, while Christians welcome Mormon support against the real enemies of America, like homosexuals, but stake their claim against Mormon candidates on the political issues and especially on their propensity to flip-flop on them, which looks like a feature of their religion, as was the case historically both with respect to polygamy and to the status of black people.

What leaves readers wondering is why William McGurn works so hard to hide the homosexuals' attacks on Mormonism, and conflate those attacks with the First Amendment speech of evangelical Christians and Republicans.

We notice there is no Mormon running for president in the Democrat Party. But there might be a Muslim secular humanist.

Rod Dreher is Really Full of It

Rod Dreher gets all uppity, here, searching as he does the innermost thoughts and secrets of the human heart:

So many times I’ve heard Catholics and Orthodox both, when talking about the scandals within these churches, quickly dismissing the deep and complex evils embedded within the lives of the two churches by making some easy reference to the wheat and the tares, or complaining that the media doesn’t see all the good things the church does, etc. That sort of thing. And it’s true! But these are statements that the people who make them typically haven’t earned the right to make, because they have never seriously looked at and thought about the kinds of things that exist within these churches (and all churches) that would lead someone to lose faith. Tom Breen has done that. That he could not only hold on to his faith, but actually find his faith by so doing, is a testament to the man’s character, and to the grace of God.

Nice riff on the human will cooperating with the spirit of God there Rod. I'd be more impressed by an involuntary conversion like that of Saul of Tarsus, which no one in any denomination seems very interested in talking about.

And just why isn't it a testament to their character who lose faith? Perhaps because for you that's impossible a priori? Because for you it is in principle impossible for the faithless to look seriously and think seriously and reach the conclusion not to believe?

Isn't the point of both experiences that human character is not absolute and not eternal and completely contingent, and something of a mystery to us? Isn't the point that it's not a conclusion?

Like it or not, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18), you and me, and everyone else, serious or not.

The Devil's Dictionary Turns 100

Stefany Anne Golberg for The Smart Set here attempts to rescue Ambrose Bierce from the clutches of "an animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be."

I rather think she does:

There’s a connection between the Devil and the word that goes back to the original Greek diábolos, which means “slanderer” or “accuser.” Bierce knew all too well the demons that lurk in our language. He wrote that the cynic sees things as they are, but also wrote that they ought to be otherwise. This is another way of saying that the cynical writer’s role is to bring the message of goodness. For only a writer who had known evil could channel virtue from the arms of the Devil and bring it back to humans. Bierce attacked goodness precisely because he believed in it, not because he didn’t. He attacked faith because he had lost it. It’s notable that a definition for God is missing from The Devil’s Dictionary. It’s as if Bierce was saying, anyone who wants to know about God should read the Bible, but anyone who wants to know humanity should read this.

The Medicine of the Miserable

The hoary fool, who many days
Has struggled with continued sorrow,
Renews his hope, and blindly lays
The desp'rate bet upon to-morrow.

-- Matthew Prior

There is No Such Thing as Human Happiness

When I consider life 'tis all a cheat,

Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit,

Live on, and think to-morrow will repay --

To-morrow's falser than the former day:

Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest

With some new joy, cuts off what we possest.

Strange cozenage! who would live past years again?

Yet all hope pleasure from what yet remain --

And from the dregs of life think to receive

What the first sprightly running could not give.

-- Dryden

You Can Take Your Labor Day and Shove It

[C]ursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life;

Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.

-- Genesis 3:17 ff.

The Solitary End: Can You Handle The Truth?

Well, no matter. You will handle it all the same.

A fellow traveler to the grave captures it beautifully:

From the moment we are born, the possibilities ahead of us contract. Each moment sets one on a path which eliminates all other possible paths. Life is one giant contraction. To decide to go one way means one can never go on the other journeys available at that moment. If one decides, at age eighteen, to go to NC State University, to use an example, one eliminates all the other roads for life and spouses and jobs and experience which would have led through, say, UNC-Chapel Hill or Duke or Clemson. This is true for every single day of our lives.

As one ages, this awareness becomes particularly acute. The contraction becomes palpable. One begins to see in one's sights the pinpoint toward which all our days are converging. The number of decisions one still has to make in the future dwindles. The contraction continues until at the moment of death the self becomes a single point of consciousness. One must at the end let go of all family, friends, and all outside experience itself so that one becomes a solitary self. Finally even that point of light is darkened. The almost infinite possibilities present at birth end at that one dot.  

This awareness of mortality is not simply the awareness that somewhere in the distant future there will be an end. We experience the loss every day.  The contraction is continuous. The passing of time is nothing other than the experience of death. Loss and memory and longing are a form of the grave. We feel it when we look at baby pictures of long grown children or see a snapshot of a movie theatre in our youth that was torn down decades earlier. Nostalgia is mourning. Death is not a moment one encounters at the end of life. It is a condition one lives in. Mortality, the condition of being subject to death, pervades our creaturely existence. It is the sea in which we swim.

Read more from this wise man, Paul Gregory Alms, at http://lrast.blogspot.com/2010/08/mortality-thrash-metal-and-church-by.html .


It reminded me of Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act Five, Scene Five, here, where each tomorrow creeps in to the last, becoming shadowy yesterdays of nothing:

SEYTON
The queen, my lord, is dead.


MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The Magical Thinking of the True Believers, Right and Left

Frank Bruni for The New York Times, here:

[T]here’s magical thinking in secular life . . . it springs from a similar yearning for easy, all-encompassing answers[.] ...

Faith-based is right. We all have our religions, all of which exert a special pull — and draw special fervor — when apprehension runs high and confusion deep, as they do now. And if yours isn’t a balanced-budget amendment and a government as lean as Christian Bale in one of his extreme-acting roles, it might well be a big fat binge of Keynesian stimulus spending. Liberals think magically, too, becoming so attached to a certain approach that they wind up advocating it less as option than as panacea.