I remember sitting in Greek class, working on translating passages from the Gospel of John, and reading John the Baptist's remarks about Jesus: This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ What caught my attention is that John is older than Jesus by at least six months. So, one might be puzzled when John states that Jesus is before John. Christianity stands or falls with understanding the person and work of Jesus (which seems like an obvious statement: no Christ, no Christianity). Therefore, I want to make a few comments on who this man is and why he is vital for Christianity.
Jesus is God the Son incarnate (which is a fancy word for "in the flesh"). He did not simply assume a body, but he took on human nature in such a way that he is both fully God and fully man. A denial of either of those points makes someone something other than Christian.
Jesus became incarnate in order to die in the place of man (as God stated that death is the penalty of sin). As God, Jesus could satisfy God for all people. If Jesus was not man, then he had no right to die in the place of man. If Jesus was not God, then, at best, he could only satisfy God for himself and no other.
The Christian faith is built upon Jesus being the Son of God, who died, was buried, and rose on the third day so that sinners might be reconciled to God.
Not to beat a dead horse, but a person cannot be a Christian by rejecting (1) Jesus as ever living, (2) Jesus as fully God (the same substance, not someone who became God), (3) Jesus died, and (4) Jesus rose bodily. That said, people may claim to be Christians, but they cannot be so if they deny any of the points laid out in the Nicene Creed. While Christianity is more than that, it is not less than that.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Beauty in the eye of the beholder? I think not.
I would like to spend a few posts in pondering upon values. Contemporary culture finds its motivation in value everyday, most evidently in monetary fashion. While money makes the most obvious display of value, I want to direct your eyes to art. I had the privilege of getting to know a local artist, Keith Martin Johns (http://www.keithmartinjohns.net/), while I finished my Bachelor's Degree. During our conversations, we would discuss the importance of values in painting. The values affect the lighting of the colors. Values of colors are not the only values displayed in art, for art more often than not also displays moral values and truth values.
The arts form a powerful medium for communicating values. This is a close personal topic for me. If I received news that the Louvre was destroyed, I would be heartbroken, mourning the loss of so many masterpieces. On the other hand, if the Museum of Modern Art burned to the ground tomorrow, I would not shed a tear. Something is lacking, or rather, the values held by the artists whose works reside in the Museum of Modern Art differ drastically from mine.
Contemporary thought holds that beauty is purely subjective and relative. I do not see how this could be. Or perhaps I am slightly biased. As a Christian, I hold to the existence of objective beauty, and I deny the truthfulness of the statement, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I believe in objective beauty because my God is beautiful, and he forms the basis from which all else comes forth. Beauty is grounded in God, and ugliness is the privation of beauty.
In my affirmation of real beauty, I also hold that ugliness is not a substance but a lack of beauty. While ugliness does not exist substantially, I do believe that some things are genuinely ugly. Thus, some things we should enjoy and other things we should abhor.
In this remarking of values, my mind is drawn to something that is often forgotten until tax time: an appraiser. Everyone has an appraiser, or some means whereby values are weighed and prioritized. For the Christian, that appraiser should be God and his priorities. This means that what God deems most important, Christians should deem most important. I am pestered to no end with two mantras from my contemporaries: Whatever makes you happy, and it's your choice. These are the appraisers for today, but these are not the appraisers that should be embraced by Christians. The appraiser set forth in the Bible is the call to be holy. This is the overriding statement that should govern the Christian: will this make me holy? Will this help make someone else holy? Is this a holy thing to do or participate in?
If we strive for holiness, all else should fall into place. So, enjoy true beauty where you see it, especially that which is around you.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
--Psalm 19:1 (ESV)
The arts form a powerful medium for communicating values. This is a close personal topic for me. If I received news that the Louvre was destroyed, I would be heartbroken, mourning the loss of so many masterpieces. On the other hand, if the Museum of Modern Art burned to the ground tomorrow, I would not shed a tear. Something is lacking, or rather, the values held by the artists whose works reside in the Museum of Modern Art differ drastically from mine.
Contemporary thought holds that beauty is purely subjective and relative. I do not see how this could be. Or perhaps I am slightly biased. As a Christian, I hold to the existence of objective beauty, and I deny the truthfulness of the statement, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I believe in objective beauty because my God is beautiful, and he forms the basis from which all else comes forth. Beauty is grounded in God, and ugliness is the privation of beauty.
In my affirmation of real beauty, I also hold that ugliness is not a substance but a lack of beauty. While ugliness does not exist substantially, I do believe that some things are genuinely ugly. Thus, some things we should enjoy and other things we should abhor.
In this remarking of values, my mind is drawn to something that is often forgotten until tax time: an appraiser. Everyone has an appraiser, or some means whereby values are weighed and prioritized. For the Christian, that appraiser should be God and his priorities. This means that what God deems most important, Christians should deem most important. I am pestered to no end with two mantras from my contemporaries: Whatever makes you happy, and it's your choice. These are the appraisers for today, but these are not the appraisers that should be embraced by Christians. The appraiser set forth in the Bible is the call to be holy. This is the overriding statement that should govern the Christian: will this make me holy? Will this help make someone else holy? Is this a holy thing to do or participate in?
If we strive for holiness, all else should fall into place. So, enjoy true beauty where you see it, especially that which is around you.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
--Psalm 19:1 (ESV)
Monday, November 3, 2014
Defending Philosophy
On days when I am not masquerading as a theologian, I spend time encouraging people to tackle philosophical issues. Contrary to popular opinion, philosophy does not deal entirely with the existence of nothing or "can God make a stone so heavy he cannot lift it?" or even "what is a chair?" Philosophy, similar to other disciplines, finds its definition to be very muddy, while at the same time, philosophy is a vital discipline that would cause the demise of most all other disciplines should it collapse.
Philosophy seeks to understand the underlying structures that compose both itself and other disciplines. How one answers certain philosophical questions will determine how one will answer other questions in a discipline (at least, if one desires to be consistent in thinking, which is a thought built upon the law of non-contradiction). For example, in answering the question, "What is ultimate reality composed of?" if one should choose to answer "merely material," then one precludes any immaterial concepts into the discussion. Thus, things like God, angels, and ideas cannot even be considered as real things.
Some people follow Kant's conclusion, that faith and reason (and by extension, philosophy) are in separate, non-overlapping spheres. Thus, some advocate that the Bible alone is sufficient. These individuals would refer to the admonition not to fall into vain philosophy. Others take the opposite position that faith bears no relevance in the search for truth. The robust Christian worldview sees faith and reason as extensions of a unified whole.
Yes, philosophy does examine questions about knowledge, ethics, identity, but these are not superfluous endeavors. Understanding identity helps people to understand how a person remains the same thing over time (whatever that means). To elaborate a touch further, suppose that materialism is true, so that all that is real is and only is material. On this premise, one should be lead to the conclusion that a thing is the composition of its parts. Therefore, any loss of a part means the thing is no longer the same thing. It is not identical with what it once was (in a non-technical manner of speaking). If you lose a cell, you have ceased to be and something else stands where you once stood. To continue the thought, most all of your cells are replaced over the years. Thus, whoever stole the cookie from the jar, that could not be you, because you are not composed of the exact identical parts that composed the six-year-old boy (unless you are just now a six-year-old boy with his hand in the cookie jar, which could still be argued that you are not the same person as the thief). Accountability becomes a mushy concept to enforce. Not that that in and of itself disqualifies physicalism from being true, but the experiment helps to show that clarification is needed on the matters, especially when the entailment of our beliefs run contrary to our intuitions (at which point here, I will defer to my good friend, Randy Everist, who is fascinated with intuition and has several good articles on the matter http://www.randyeverist.com/2011/04/argument-for-intuition.html ).
As frustrating as it can be, I enjoy philosophy because it forces one to focus on the vital points. That said, I still scratch my head over the Ship of Theseus. The only comfort I have after thinking on Theseus's ship is that I find it disanalogous to people in that people are not merely physical and that the immaterial aspect preserves their identities.
Philosophy seeks to understand the underlying structures that compose both itself and other disciplines. How one answers certain philosophical questions will determine how one will answer other questions in a discipline (at least, if one desires to be consistent in thinking, which is a thought built upon the law of non-contradiction). For example, in answering the question, "What is ultimate reality composed of?" if one should choose to answer "merely material," then one precludes any immaterial concepts into the discussion. Thus, things like God, angels, and ideas cannot even be considered as real things.
Some people follow Kant's conclusion, that faith and reason (and by extension, philosophy) are in separate, non-overlapping spheres. Thus, some advocate that the Bible alone is sufficient. These individuals would refer to the admonition not to fall into vain philosophy. Others take the opposite position that faith bears no relevance in the search for truth. The robust Christian worldview sees faith and reason as extensions of a unified whole.
Yes, philosophy does examine questions about knowledge, ethics, identity, but these are not superfluous endeavors. Understanding identity helps people to understand how a person remains the same thing over time (whatever that means). To elaborate a touch further, suppose that materialism is true, so that all that is real is and only is material. On this premise, one should be lead to the conclusion that a thing is the composition of its parts. Therefore, any loss of a part means the thing is no longer the same thing. It is not identical with what it once was (in a non-technical manner of speaking). If you lose a cell, you have ceased to be and something else stands where you once stood. To continue the thought, most all of your cells are replaced over the years. Thus, whoever stole the cookie from the jar, that could not be you, because you are not composed of the exact identical parts that composed the six-year-old boy (unless you are just now a six-year-old boy with his hand in the cookie jar, which could still be argued that you are not the same person as the thief). Accountability becomes a mushy concept to enforce. Not that that in and of itself disqualifies physicalism from being true, but the experiment helps to show that clarification is needed on the matters, especially when the entailment of our beliefs run contrary to our intuitions (at which point here, I will defer to my good friend, Randy Everist, who is fascinated with intuition and has several good articles on the matter http://www.randyeverist.com/2011/04/argument-for-intuition.html ).
As frustrating as it can be, I enjoy philosophy because it forces one to focus on the vital points. That said, I still scratch my head over the Ship of Theseus. The only comfort I have after thinking on Theseus's ship is that I find it disanalogous to people in that people are not merely physical and that the immaterial aspect preserves their identities.
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