I’ve been fluffing around lately. I see interesting things and generally ooh and ahh over it’s shiny veneer. I spend some time on my hobbies and enjoy world creation. Not a typo, I said world creation. The two worlds in the forge at this point are Lenga, which I’ve mentioned many times, and the Spring Football universe. The former is more or less based on the Roman Empire, the latter assumes that Donald Trump didn’t ruin the USFL. I took a hiatus from the Spring Football universe to play some board game football. I’m prepping for the draft on March 8.
Meanwhile, anything pertaining to religion has been pretty low-key. As stated earlier, I have been back to Delphi twice since my break with the ICoC blogosphere. Once out of curiosity, more recently as a result of the NIU shooting. Being a former board member, I don’t think it is possible to completely remove myself from the ICoC scene without attending and placing membership at a different church. I’m not a member of the church I attend, but I would have to attend elsewhere to really get away from the ICoC. Still, I am not going to instigate anything ICoC. Someone says something to me, fine, deal with it quickly and move on. Someone says, “you know what Gordo is saying now?” and I’ll avoid it. I get an idea in my head to see what X church leader is doing these days and a stinging self-rebuke is in order. That’s all part of my old life.
My online friend Doug went back to posting daily Bible studies. I know he enjoyed it and I enjoyed reading them. Cool stuff, really. Doing the same is not helpful to me right now, but I do plan on doing that at some point. I’ve gotten into at least three discussions lately where the disagreement turned into a criticism of my hermeneutic and eisegesis. (Not a misspelling.) In one case, I was talking about something that I hadn’t fully thought out in my own mind and admitted as much. The other two cases, though, led to disagreements about the implications of a stated belief. Someone would say something like the Bible says statement w, because of X verse, y verse, and z verse. I would respond that if you believe in statement w that implies statement U and statement U is not consistent with the Bible. Therefore, statement w may be wrong, inaccurate, or needs further thought. Then I say that we seem to have a different way of looking at things that will lead us to cross paths. That generally ends the discussion with a parting shot about proper Biblical interpretation.
I’ve learned that my hope for unity will not come through doctrinal agreement because there is a lack of agreement on hermeneutic, logic, and the value of intuition. I don’t think it is possible to come to an agreement on two of those three. Unity must come through something else - not the lack of conflict, but the focus on what’s really important. What is important is the work of Jesus.
More on that later.
Still, I work through things in my mind like the nature of God’s predestination. I’ve become interested in Molinism lately, despite the appearance circular reasoning by many of its largest proponents. No one has really stated it simply, which makes it dubious in my mind. Yet, I appreciate the idea that God is sovereign *AND* man has free will. (In all candor, if there is no free will, Christianity is pointless to me. I didn’t say everyone, I said me. I wish I could take Spurgeon’s take on a few areas and just say, “I don’t understand,” but I am not as strong as he was about it.) I believe in a God that has supreme power but also supreme self-control in that He doesn’t have to force choices on all of creation in order for the universe to work out as He plans.
But all this mental stuff leaves the heart dry and thirsty. I’ve taken Bobber’s suggestion at chanting the Psalms. The effort sputtered at first, but I hope that when the book arrives that he mentioned, this effort will get back on track. I plan to write about it when I start again. In the meantime, the heart delights in the simple pleasures of my children. Jesus said that we need to become like them in enter Heaven and I understand, in part, why.
Brother Bear has no problem starting new adventures because he doesn’t think about how much I love him. He knows I do. When he’s tired, he tells me, when he’s scared, he asks me for comfort, when he’s crossed a boundary, he respects my word. He revels in what he can do and spends most of his time doing those things. He likes to say “o” and “x” and a few other letters. He likes to run at full speed. He likes to throw all the cushions of the couch. He like to dive from one piece of furniture to the next (without a net). He likes to dance. Whatever he does, he does it as hard as he can without stress. Whenever he feels something, he expresses it. Whenever he has been naughty, he dislikes the whole process, but the drama ends when the process is over. It’s as if he is saying, There’s just too many good things to do. Despite the sometimes bewildering complexity of his personality, this fundamental thought seems to keep him going.
I’d like to think he gets it from me. If not, I’d like to think that I can be that way. Either way, I am ready to get back to it. There’s just too many good things to do.
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9 Responses to “Back to It”
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- toeteaknow: well, since it was a post, the answer I guess is ‘yes’ and not ‘maybe’….. …maybe not? ttk
- pinakidion: what rock said
- Rock: “Is Pinakidion ever going to post again?”
- salguod: Is that an answer to a question that I missed?
- xray342: How’s this for cryptic? $ echo ‘pinakidion’ | md5 16da6556b9ba8a411a6f4251591eae2b
> I wish I could take Spurgeon’s take on
> a few areas and just say, “I don’t
> understand,”
I guess it all comes down to which area (or areas) we choose to admit that we don’t understand.
Yes, good thoughts on unity. I don’t know if anyone has this together. My own denomination is currently going through a sort of inquisition which my church is on the barrel end of.
There is no form of church government which guarantees love and respect over matters of theology and doctrine. It’s more or less up to the hearts and minds of the leaders to lead in a kind hearted and servant oriented way. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to have happened much in church history.
Good stuff.
My renewed Bible study has been refreshing, but it took a long time for me to give in to it. I knew for several months that what I needed was to get back to focusing on God, and the way to do that was to study Him, but I resisted. I went through my skating by time, dabbling in this and that. I wouldn’t say I’m out of it yet, but I am enjoying taking a look at Jesus afresh. It just took time to get where I could do it.
The time will come for you too, don’t fall into the old trap that you can work your way out of a malaise, or worse that you have to work your way out. I think all you can do is turn to God to get out of it. He’ll bring you out in time, and through whatever it is that you need to go through.
On unity, anyone who thinks that unity can be achieved by agreement need only look at church history to prove that wrong. It’s been tried and tried and it always fails. Real unity is when you stick together in spite of disagreement.
Oh, and I had a free will epiphany a few years ago that might help you. Or might not.
Yo Salguod, I am also a Calvinist who spent 20 years as a Restorationist. A few things that might be of interest:
* TULIP comes from the Cannons of Dort. A Dutch church council that met in order to determine if the teachings advanced by Arminias were orthodox.
* Funny thing, Calvin wasn’t invited to Dort. In fact, he was already dead.
* The order and number of the items in Dutch is different. In fact, there are only 4 items in the original Dutch document from whence the TULIP comes from.
Much more historical info on Dort and TULIP here…
The disagreement part of my post suffered from my dyslexic editing. (Yes, I am dyslexic, really. I read books through a pinhole sometimes because my brain skips words and sentences). The italics have the sentences inexplicably deleted.
The other two cases, though, led to disagreements about the implications of a stated belief. Someone would say something like the Bible says statement w, because of X verse, y verse, and z verse. I would respond that if you believe in statement w that implies statement U and statement U is not consistent with the Bible. Therefore, statement w may be wrong, inaccurate, or needs further thought. The someone would then feel that I was adding words to what they were saying or adding things to the text that are not there. I respond by talking about the implications of what you believe. He/she responds with “just focus on the text”. Then I say that we seem to have a different way of looking at things that will lead us to cross paths. That generally ends the discussion with a parting shot about proper Biblical interpretation. On one occasion I shot back that making declarative statements has ramifications that should be explored.
Salguod: God’s timing is something that I am aware of even if I do not always like it. I have no doubt that there is light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. I guess it the puzzlement at the tunnel’s length.
As far as free will, I think Amy’s follow up is close to where I am coming from. To say that all humans by default are impaired in making right choices because of sin and that making ‘more’ right choices is possibly only by the grace of God, implies that Christians would make more right choices than all atheists. The implication is that atheists (not agnostics, but real atheists) have no possible access to the grace of God, ergo they have no ability to make ‘more’ right choices. Somehow, though, the atheists that I know tend to demonstrate consistent moral behavior better than Christians. It doesn’t seem to add up. Then again, it is that whole implication thing creeping up again.
In any case, I’m not so much working out of it as much as more determined to enjoy the great things God has given me. In the end, Calvinism / Arminianism will fall away from disuse.
“To say that all humans by default are impaired in making right choices because of sin and that making ‘more’ right choices is possibly only by the grace of God, implies that Christians would make more right choices than all atheists.”
This implies that God’s grace is greater or exclusive towards Christians and this is not biblical. So the first part of your statement is quite valid (and biblical) in my opinion.
But the Reformed faith is more pointedly focused on conversion. That is, how can it be that some accept God’s Grace and others do not? And secondly (after conversion) how is it that some persevere to the end of their lives and others fall away?
The relative merits of one person against another is not really relevant and can be misleading. The atheist who does some good may look a bit better than a particular Christian but in the end will fall short of God’s grace since he rejects Christ.
Bobber: Thanks for the clarification. I am misunderstanding something you have said, so what I am about to say is in the form of a question, even if it doesn’t sound like one.
Correct me if I am wrong, but when you say the first part is valid, I’m assuming its the “all humans by default are impaired in making right choices because of sin” and nothing else.
The making more right choices is possible only by the grace of God is a paraphrase of Jared, mentioned in Salguod’s link. I’d be interested in a better way of saying it so that I am more accurate to Calvinism.
My understanding of the Reformed Faith is that the the question of accepting God’s Grace is answered, “Because God made it so.” It’s also the answer to the second question, specifically, that Christians persevere to the end or not because God made it so. Based on that, the fact that an atheist can appear to be more moral than a Christian is the same thing, namely, that God has made it so. As such, we are left to wonder until we ask God in Heaven, if in fact we remember the question by then. (And based on the grandeur of Heaven,I doubt that we will.)
It’s important to remember that these things are a mystery. I think it was Augustin who said something like “if you think you’ve got these things figured out, you can be sure you are wrong!”
Anyway, I think “Because God made it so” is not a bad way to say it. A couple of things that I keep in mind. When man’s will comes up against God’s will, God always wins! And, with regard to man’s condition, we come out of the womb with our fists held high against the almighty. It is only by his intervention that we are given a new heart and can then turn to God.