I saw book in Chapters the other day that is a compendium of atheist spirituality. I don’t bring this up for any other reason than to ask, what is spirituality if you are an atheist? I know we get atheist readers here from time to time and I’m just asking this as an open question. At first glance spirituality and atheism seem incongruous, but perhaps not?

I lost my internet for a couple days, but now I’m back. My wonderful service provider disconnected my service by accident.

From time to time I like to veer a little bit from the objective and philosophical to subjective, introspective posts. I hope the readers of this blog can indulge me a bit once again.

I don’t write this to be vain (as will hopefully be obvious), but for a good chunk of my school-life I’ve had the reputation of being the “brainer” or what-have-you. I’m definitely the type of person who likes to be alone more than in social settings, I like to read a lot, and I think about “deep” things (as people have said to me) a lot.

Often along with that reputation, at least in circles which care about theology, politics, philosophy, and the like, comes an appearance of being certain of what I believe. I’m sure I often reinforce that to outsiders.

But to be honest, I’d have to say there’s very little I have 100% certainty about, and only a very few things I have a great degree of certainty about.

In the recent past, I can remember struggling with the following issues off the top of my head (and when I say struggling, I mean anything from just not knowing what is true to severe emotional distress): Calvinism (i.e., monergism and “divine determinism”), the problem of evil, pacifism, economics, evolution, sexual ethics (including both the “gay issue” and the “gender issue”), inerrancy, infant baptism, the Trinity, Christology, and eschatology. If you didn’t notice, those subjects cover just about every issue I’ve posted on in the past few years. I often write about these issues because I’m thinking about them, but I think about them often because I’m not completely sure what is true about them.

For better or for worse, I think this will probably be the way it is for me for the rest of my life. I have a temperment of “perfectionism” (at least, that’s what my fiancée tells me), and thus am rarely satisfied with arguments and positions that I take, which leads to uncertainty. I know this sounds an awful lot like the people James describes, i.e., “like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind”, or as Paul puts it, “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,” but for the life of me I don’t know how to be any other way. Perhaps God will show me some day, but for now I just keep struggling along. This may, and probably will, give people reason to discount me or my arguments, but I figure being honest is ultimately the better way to come to the truth with people, instead of pretending to have no biases and simply being a rational seeker-after-truth.

Maybe this will help someone else. If not, thanks for your indulgence anyway.

The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge, but He overthrows the words of the treacherous man.

Some interesting thoughts on Proverbs 22:12 from Peter Leithart:

The “eyes of Yahweh” are open for judgment (Psalm 11:4). His eyes roam about the earth to view what is going on and to pass judgment. Sometimes, the eyes are the source of the judicial action itself. It’s not simply that God sees and pronounces on something, but that His eyes see and His eyes take action.

Here, the Lord’s eyes are watchers, preserving and guarding. There is a connection with the tabernacle symbolism. The lampstand of the tabernacle is formed like a almond tree, with almond blossoms and buds. This fits with the story of Aaron’s rod, which budded like an almond tree. Aaron’s rod designated him as the true priest, who could flourish and bear fruit in the presence of God. But the fact that it was almond shows part of its significance. In Hebrew, the word for “almond” puns on the word for “watcher.” Aaron was being designated as the “watcher,” one of the “eyes of Yahweh” within the house. The almond-formed lampstand had the same symbolism. The lights of the lampstand were “watchers” that keep their “eyes” on the twelve loaves of showbread on the other side of the holy place.

How do the eyes of Yahweh preserve or guard knowledge? What does that mean? We can look at the second line of the Proverb for a clue. This says that Yahweh overthrows the words of a treacherous man, and this evidently contrasts with what the Lord does with the wise, faithful, or righteous man. A treacherous man speaks, issues orders, makes plans, announces judgments, but the Lord doesn’t preserve and guard them. He overthrows his words, the words of his knowledge. He tries to pass on knowledge to others, perhaps to his own children, but those words are without effect. The Lord overthrows them. But the Lord preserves, watches over, guards, and makes effective the words and knowledge of the faithful and righteous and wise.

Communication is never simply a matter of clarity of expression or conception. It is never simply a matter between two people. God, who is with His Word and who is His Word, is always involved in every act of human communication. God either protects knowledge, keeps His eyes on knowledge and words, to confirm and give them success; or He frustrates words and makes them fail. Good communication thus requires faithfulness and righteousness before God. Repentance is always part of the answer to poor communication.

One of the main alternatives to the pacifist reading of Jesus’ command to “not resist an evildoer” is Robert Guelich’s interpretation, which puts the command in the context of litigation. In my reading, both Oliver O’Donovan and Craig Blomberg have appealed to this interpretation. This has the effect of eliminating any relevance this command might have to a (potentially) Christian magistrate in their occupation.

But this interpretation ultimately fails, I think; Richard B. Hays has this (among other things) to say:

(3) The larger argument falls apart if verses 41-42 cannot be integrated into the theory about forgoing legal defense. Guelich is forced to acknowledge that these illustrations (going the second mile and giving to all who ask) have nothing to do with his construal of 5:39. He can only say of the illustrations that “their presence here is… indicative of Matthew’s faithful use of tradition even when only tangentially related to his primary redactional intention.” If that can be said of verses 41-42, however, why not of verse 39 also? A reading of Matthew’s redactional intention, in order to be persuasive, must account for all the material that is present in the text.

In fact, the loosely connected sayings of verses 39-42 all serve as illustrations of the peaceloving and generous character that the teaching of Jesus seeks to inculcate. Jesus’ disciples are to relinquish the tit-for-tat ethic of the lex talionis and live in a way that eschews retaliation and defense of self-interest… .

The teaching of Matthew 3:39, then, is about nonviolence, even though the passage as a whole has a larger vision of the kingdom of God in view. The admonition not to strike back is one of several “focus instances” that figuratively depict the Matthean vision for the community of discipleship. It is not simply a rule prohibiting a certain action; rather, it is a symbolic pointer to the character of the peaceful city set on a hill.

[Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 326]

Benjamin and I left this discussion at one of his challenges: if the OT could be shown to teach that loving one’s enemies is compatible with killing them, I would concede that the command to love one’s enemies in the NT would not require non-violence.

I’ve been thinking a bit about this, and the one verse that I can find that might indicate the love of enemies was consistent with killing them would be Exodus 23:4-5. Here Moses says:

Here’s a litle fisking from a comment made by P.W. Dunn on voting democrat. My comments are in italics. Dunn’s aren’t:

Homosexuality is just one aspect of a culture war that divides liberals and conservatives, not just in the US, but elsewhere in the world. Americans who vote Republican are not stupid. While Canadians proudly think that socialized health care should be a major issue on the agenda, many Americans vote Republican because they realize that if the US adopted Canadian-style health care, then the many Canadians who cross the border for treatment will have no place to go.

A while ago there were some posts around here about the need to eat a bit more responsibly and self-sufficiently. Anyway, here’s my crack at it:

I’m actually embarrassed at how easy this has been. Having lots of rainfall this year hasn’t hurt (especially since this garden seems to drain well).

In case you missed it, CBC Radio’s program, Ideas had a two-part series on St. Paul in which N. T. Wright features quite prominently.

I just finished reading Margaret MacMillan’s excellent The Uses and Abuses of History. This book is concerned with the ways in which politicians and others try to wield history to serve their own ends. It’s a relatively quick read, but that’s one of its strengths. It operates almost as a manifesto calling professional historians to engage the public, lest ideologues be the ones to create the past. A sample:

“Yet when [historians] produce work that challenges deeply held beliefs and myths about the past, they are often accused of being elitist, nihilistic, or simply out of touch with that imaginary place, ‘the real world.’”

MacMillan tackles the usual suspects (despotic regimes of every stripe as well as those who see everything as Munich, 1938 ) as well as mild-mannered Canada. In particular she mentions the veterans’ groups are relentless in attempting to countering any assertion that the actions of Bomber Command and Sir Arthur Harris were tantamount to war crimes. If you’re interested in history (and really history, not nationalist mythmaking) then I’d recommend this book.