I was having a bad evening last night so I grabbed my guitar and went outside to play under the night sky and just be alone. This guy (who I had seen just walking alone around campus for hours) approached me and asked if I was a music major since I was playing guitar and singing. I was willing to chat with him even though I was more than a little leery of some random guy who seemed creepy coming and talking to me with nobody else around at night. I told him about my double major in Bible & Theological Studies and History, and automatically with the knowledge that I was a Bible & Theology major, this guy wanted to start talking theology with me. Though I felt irritated, I politely listened as this guy started ranting and fuming to me, a complete stranger, about some obscure “theological issue” of which nobody else I know of has ever spoken of. (Take an Old and New Testament survey course, and you’re God’s gift to the theological community, aren’t ya).
Not only that, but as soon as I started questioning and attempting to attain clarity on what he was talking about, he automatically assumed that I was arguing with him and started saying things like, “How could you not accept the very words of Jesus.” and “I am so disappointed that you don’t know anything about the Bible and your are a Bible major.” and “Your major obviously isn’t doing anything for you.” Condemning a complete stranger. This guy doesn’t know me, my backgound, or my beliefs. I tried to stay calm, but I was flustered and appropriately so. He ended up walking away angry, and I sat their upset and confused. How could a complete stranger say those things to another complete stranger. I tried to brush it off and even analyzed what had happened to see if there was something that I said that was wrong. Maybe God had wanted me to learn something from the experience? Well I forgot about it after a while, but just a minute ago I recieved an email from this guy. He must have looked up my first name in the JBU address book and got my email. This is the email entitled “Know the truth!” that he sent me,
“One Thing I know for sure is that you were WRONG! I know you tried to justify your unbelief, but, honestly you just don’t want to believe what’s clearly written in the Word of God. Your Bible major doesn’t seem to be helping you here. If it was, it would be clear to you since it’s sitting right there in front of you in the Bible. I hope you learn the truth one day to avoid what’s coming to you: “But…those who refuse to believe…and who tell lies-all these will have a place in the lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8 NCV). God bless you!”
I still don’t understand exactly what I was wrong about, but apparently I am on my way to hell because of it. This guy probably wrote this email being so pleased with himself thinking he was some saintly evangelist saving the soul of some unfortunate, hell-bound girl. I don’t know where the state of his soul is, but I know for sure that the love of Jesus was not behind what he was doing. I hope this guy learns better someday. Thankfully I am firmly set in my beliefs, because if I were not a Christian, I would never want to be one if I associated Christianity with people like this. I am trying not to be upset over this, but it is still affecting my mood.
I can love widows and orphans and people from different cultures easily enough. It is ignorant zealots that are the hardest to love. We must love them anyways. Me not responding to this email is probably the most loving thing I can do in this situation.
An old picture of my dear friend Lauren and myself caught my eye today. I stood and stared at it for a moment. The picture was taken a few years ago on a white, snowy day. I assume school had been cancelled since the sun shone bright like it does only at midday during winter when we would have been at school, and because of a vague memory I have of walking to the neighborhood sledding hill on that day (as is snow day tradition). We were bundled up in winter coats with our rosy cheeks and big smiles—smiles of a sincere and childlike nature.
In my reverie, I came upon the bizarre thought that when I look at a picture of Lauren and myself, my mind does not perceive two different people: I see a whole, a unity, an organism. This is not the first time I have felt this: It happens on rare occasions with someone who is intimately familiar with me, and I with them. I look at them and see myself; I look at myself and see them—not in an outward way, but in the way that a heart knows another heart. And yet through this reflecting of each other, we become more truly ourselves. This is the kind of friendship I crave. Having a hundred friends would probably be nice, but even one friendship like the one I have with Lauren is more valuable than any hundreds of lesser friendships. I feel extreme joy at the reality that Lauren knows great depths about me, and yet, loves me still. Being sincerely loved and valued by someone is a rare gift, one that I feel unworthy of.
At least for myself, there is much to be pondered in light of this about who God is and what a relationship with Him should be like. I do believe that my friendship with Lauren is a God-given gift. He has certainly shown me much about Himself through it. When we are intimate with our Lord, we should lose our self-ness and begin to reflect, even become who he is. The great paradox here is that when we surrender “our own identity” (sarcastic quotation marks because we were created in his image, and there is no identity outside of him) and instead accept God’s identity, we become truly ourselves. What is taken away with his right hand is given back with his left.
This powerfully beautiful poem will forever be one of my favorites because of grandpa Marlin. Reading this brings me so much joy and a great longing for that beauty which is not of this world.
THE GROVES were God’s first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them—ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world’s riper years, neglect
God’s ancient sanctuaries, and adore
Only among the crowd, and under roofs
That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn—thrice happy if it find
Acceptance in His ear.
Father, thy hand
Hath reared these venerable columns, thou
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here—thou fill’st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
That run along the summit of these trees
In music; thou art in the cooler breath
That from the inmost darkness of the place
Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Here is continual worship;—Nature, here,
In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird
Passes; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,
Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace,
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak,—
By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated—not a prince,
In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
E’er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this great universe.
My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me—the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.
Lo! all grow old and die—but see again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses,—ever-gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. O, there is not lost
One of earth’s charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch-enemy Death—yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant’s throne—the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.
There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them;—and there have been holy men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in thy presence reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink
And tremble and are still. O God! when thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
With all the waters of the firmament,
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities—who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
O, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad, unchainèd elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.
The following are a few quotations from Dr. Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boson College and Christian apologist. Kreeft is giving a lecture about the spiritual and philosophical implications of C. S Lewis’s “Abolition of Man” and Walker Percy’s “Lost in the Cosmos.” You can find this full lecture spliced up into 7 videos on Youtube. This stuff is utterly important to recognize.
“The more we know, the less we know who it is who knows it all.”
“The typically modern mind usually makes the far deadlier error of trying to understand the self by science. The ancients personalized the universe; the moderns depersonalized the self. The ancients thought that even matter was spirit; we think even spirit is matter. They thought even things were persons; we think even persons are things. They worshiped the earth as the body of a god; we call psychology a science. Which mistake is stupider and deadlier?”
“And now we are the great unknown: we, knowers of all things. We are lost in the cosmos. The reason we are lost in the cosmos is because we are not in the cosmos in the first place… We, subjects, transcend the cosmos, which is the sum of all objects… C. S. Lewis puts the same startling point in chapter 3 of ‘Miracles’ that human consciousness is not part of the universe or part of nature. It is not one of the many objects that make up the universe. It is literally supernatural. For the knowledge of a thing is not one of that thing’s parts. Therefore, the knowledge of nature, which we have, cannot be a part of nature.”
“‘What shall I do to be saved?’ The only really serious question in the world. Lewis and Percy offer the same solution, for there is only one. When you make a mistake, there is no hope in progress, no hope in going on. There is hope only in regress, in repentance. You must go back to where you turned off the right road and somehow find your way back onto it. Only then can you progress.”
Being in college is perhaps the most wonderful, terribly wonderful experience I have had yet. Wonderful because knowledge and learning are some of my greatest delights. Terribly wonderful because even at a Christian university my values and perspectives are being put under fire like never before, and being challenged is also one of my greatest delights. I believe that you should never let a challenge defeat you, rather, you should always use it as a tool for improvement.
Anyways, being away at college from everything that is familiar to me has introduced a new factor into my life. I have no other option than to interact with the world with just me, my mind, the foundation of truth that has been built for me up to this point, and the Holy Spirit to help guide me. That has a lot of implications for every area of my life currently, but I feel the need to elaborate on just one area that has been of significant weight for me.
In particular, I am forced to face the reality of me.
Now, that doesn’t mean that I have never tried to focus on the reality of myself before. We all must, at times, analyze ourselves in order to bring about growth. However, I have always dwelt on it far too much. I have always been abnormally in tune with the particulars of my insufficiencies and my flaws and my sinfulness. It is a paradoxical kind of vice because some would hear that and initially think that I am overly humble. I feel guilt when people think that because in reality, my problem finds its root in pride, not in “hyper-humility.” Weird how that works, isn’t it? (Side note—C.S. Lewis elaborates on this issue in his book Screwtape Letters, an excellent book that unveils some truths about human nature).
God has been using this time of isolation to make me struggle with my nature. It really really really really hurts. I am putting my confidence in God that this hurt is the pang of a sharp needle which delivers the vaccination, or the breaking and re-setting of a displaced joint. There is always pain before healing, tearing apart before rebuilding. I am trusting so fervently that eventually there will be healing for me, a victory over the death that is sinful nature. Paul says in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” I feel this struggle so sharply as all who have awakened to the reality of their human condition will. We all desperately need Jesus. Oh, how we need him.
“…he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.”
Jesus, teach me how to be poor in spirit. You say that it is the humble who will inherit your kingdom, those who have faith like little children. You reveal the truth of yourself to uneducated fishermen and prostitutes and the ones who are seen as worthless and disgusting. You reveal yourself to those who will abandon all earthly glory and gain. You, YOU, Lord of everything, humbled yourself and were the servant of all. If you humbled yourself, then I am overwhelmed by the reality of how low I should be in comparison. Don’t let my words and prayers be empty and repulsive like the prayers of a hypocrite. My soul thirsts for you like a cripple in the middle of the desert. I need you so badly. If the same power that raised you from the dead lives inside of me, then it would be an understatement to say that that power is great enough to overcome every depth of my sin. I put my confidence in your power and love and justice and every part of you. Save me, Jesus. Amen.
…because of all of things, bad things, that I see my country repeating from times past. If you’re really eager to have a greater understanding of the current condition of our country, just strive to educate yourself about history entirely. Our society needs more people who understand that if you don’t learn from history, you repeat it.
We’ve reached an age almost like a repeat of the Enlightenment (Although, this time the movement seems to have more of a “spiritual” basis). As a whole, people are beginning to question everything. We demand proof. We demand knowledge. This can be very beneficial. However, humanity has a really ludicrous tendency, yes, we all do: We swing from one end of the pendulum to the other. Most of us are extremists by default. It’s a constant fight that I have with myself too. Another thing that is harmful is when we look for knowledge from sources who claim to have knowledge but don’t— that’s a whole different can of worms, though.
Anyways, going back to the fact that we doubt everything: Where some have taken this is to not only doubt everything, but also to reject everything previously established even by trial and error.
I’ve found this to be apparent with a recent trend in people of my own generation’s thinking. There has been a circulating notion that we must not only question the long established view of the evil of communism, but we must go in the opposite direction to accept socialism. After all, we are enlightened. We’ll get it right this time. Right? —— Wrong. I’ve been researching communism quite a bit lately. It’s terrible. The more I learn about communism’s history, the more I rightfully despise it. We need to purge our government of every Marxists, whether through creed or even “unknowingly” through practice, now. Look at history. History proves the nature of something—and communism has been proven to be unsuccessful and oppressive time and time again. It’s an evil that is infiltrating our own long-standing democratic government. We have to protect the vision of our forefathers. The more we keep deviating from that vision, the more we crumble.
Then again, is there really any use in protecting this country anyway? Jesus is coming back soon; we might as well just let it go.
Oh no, there I go on the pendulum again. Sigh. Some things I’ll never understand… in this life at least.
“Philosophy can be compared to some powders that are so corrosive that, after they have eaten away the infected flesh of a wound, they then devour the living flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place.”
—Pierre Bayle
“Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that. As Dr. Johnson said, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” The real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles which we are all so anxious not to see; like bringing a horse back and back to the fence it has refused to jump or bringing a child back and back to the bit in its lesson that it wants to shirk.” —C.S. Lewis
The very last paragraph of The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis states,
[T]he kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street of garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.
This book holds a lot more value to me than just this short excerpt expresses, but for the sake of keeping this blog as short as possible, I’ll leave the reading of the rest of this book up to you. It is excellent, and I highly recommend it. The purpose of this blog is still foggy in my mind as I type this. I endeavor to possibly clear my own mind and organize my thoughts in the process of writing. So if you are reading it, good luck. I hope you can follow my rabbit trails.
My reaction to this book was to apply everything it says to the recent encounters I’ve had with the concepts of existentialism, or on a more broad level, of post-modernism. There are many more (so-called) philosophies that have been masquerading around under the false names of Enlightenment or Insight besides just existentialism. I am merely using existentialism as an example because it is the one which has been called to my attention the most recently and which this book reminded me the most of.
I believe that the ideas of Nietzsche’s are preposterous. I came to that conclusion not because I believe myself to have the credentials to have any say-so about philosophy, I certainly do not, but merely because God has given me the simple ability to reason. You don’t need to be an intellectual to identify absurdity. Also, I believe that the easy conclusion I came to would not have been possible if my mind were not trained to judge all things according the the truth of God expressed in the Bible. Therefore, any insight I have cannot be accredited to me. You can call it “religious presuppositions;” I call it discernment. It is available to you as well if you read the Bible.
Existentialism is just one branch on the tree of relativism. I believe that entire way of thinking is deceitful, evil, and ultimately dangerous. This philosophy has been receiving so much approval and praise among people who are seeking enlightenment that you would think they had never encountered any real truth at all. I speak of Christians as well as non-Christians. The line between the two becomes perpetually less distinguishable.
Someone once told me that I really just misunderstand Nietzsche. The sad thing was that this person claimed to be a Christian. I cannot judge the state of their soul; however, I think it is reasonable to say that a Christian has no business advocating Nietzsche. They said his ideas are a great triumph of human intelligence and that my objections to him (and to that entire philosophy) are like objections to Understanding herself. You would think that they hold human ideas in equal regard as the gospel truth. This person claims that I should really have more of an open mind and not be so judgmental. After all, that is the modern thing to do.
But I think that is wrong in this case. I do not think that we owe any respect to the foundation-less, fruitless ideas of fools. The extent of our study of those subjects should be for the sake of having enough knowledge to refute them.
“It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence.” ~C.S. Lewis
Anyway, I hope this blog maybe did something for you. If not, I warned you. Ultimately, I think this turned out to be my rebuttal to certain arguments I have had in the past with people who will remain unnamed. Read the book and perhaps you will gain a further (and probably clearer haha) understanding of what I am attempting to say.
My history text book has been talking about things such as the Renaissance, Humanism, and the Enlightenment. Human excellence, human beauty, and human capability all sound appealing, but let’s not miss the entire picture. It’s not about you or me or the human race. IT’S ALL ABOUT GOD. Hello! The human race is NOT basically good. Yes, I said it. We are all hopelessly depraved, wicked, and incapable to earn salvation. THANK GOD for that because if it were up to my own human effort, I would be damned.
I cannot earn grace. I cannot achieve “enlightenment“ (imagine me saying that drenched with sarcasm). In fact, if you want to be truly enlightened, start seeking God. HE is the source of understanding. HE is the source of beauty (The humanist artists only had half the truth. There is grandeur and splendid beauty in nature, but that’s because it is a mere dim reflection of the Master Artist who created it. Don’t worship the created thing, worship the Creator. Now I’ll get off my mini-rant). HE is our source of grace. Grace is a free gift. God did not want anybody to be able to boast of it because he wants the glory. It is a GIFT. We cannot earn it or achieve it, which is an essential principle behind humanism.
Some Christians even started accepting humanism (and still do, just in different forms). The “Christian Humanists” haha claimed that the goal of every human should be to achieve human excellence and therefore be “re-united” with God. No. That is not Christianity. Any excellence achieved by a human should be attributed to God, anything else is called pride. Our culture is sick with pride for this very reason. We take God’s credit. Grace can not, will not, ever, under any circumstances be achieved.
Humanism is wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m going to be sick if I have to hear my history text book sing it’s praises any longer.
The principle is pride. That’s how Satan fell. That is all humanism is. It’s sinful, disgusting pride wrapped up in pretty paper with a big bow on it. It sounds so good and appealing, but it’s deceptive. Deception is so sly and inconspicuous.
If you trust in your own effort, you will fall to destruction. Accept God’s FREE gift of grace! Stop striving to earn it!
Don’t believe me? Go read a Bible. Don’t believe the Bible? Then change.
Side note: I am not saying that we shouldn’t strive to be excellent. God has created us to be capable of excellence, in His image. We should do everything with excellence as an act of worship to our God. The sin comes when we do things for our own glory instead of God’s glory.
