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| I'd like to let you in on something you may have heard snippets about before, but hasn't been explained in an overview form to my 'public friends.' Anyways, yes, I’ve been working on a story, and to be honest I get kinda grumpy when I talk about it with people, so if I snarl sometimes don’t take it personal, but I need to start talking about the book anyway. Well, the reasons I can be on edge when talking about the book are mostly because I don’t want to be perceived as prideful, and because I’m afraid I might not do it well enough. Okay, as CS Lewis says, ‘true humility dispenses with all modesty,’ so I’ll tell you what I honestly think. I think the book is going to be great, tremendous even, I’m only afraid it might not be as good as it can be or be finished in time to do the good it might. But enough of that. As I see it, there’s an enormous gap in Christian philosophy and thought on the subject of romance. My high school teacher, Dean Hardy – I think he has a masters, check out Stand your Ground http://www.tostandyourground.com/ if you want – seconded the notion that there’s a massive hole in theology that needs to be plugged if we wish to satisfactorily understand these mysteries called romance and sex. And the thing is, I’ve been thinking and praying and working on this for 3 years, to be truthful, and I think the book that is in the works could plug the gap, and that’s what makes me so excited. Actually, pride and fear probably aren’t the main factors that get me tense. The big ones are irritation with people being contented with shallow thought and sophistic answers. It bothers me that many wouldn’t be interested in reading a book which would, I think, finally give satisfactory answers to questions like those below. I hope that a long list of disturbing questions like the one below would frighten people into a sort of desperation that yanks them to seek the truth about what God has made with marriage and romance and what is right to do therein, and not show complacency in assuming that doing things as they always have been done will be good enough to satisfy God. So, here’s some questions I haven’t found satisfying answers to in the theology books I’ve studied, that I’ve been cogitating on for some time. I think I mostly have sufficient answers to these questions, but the body of Christ will have to test that as a loving, contemplative family. But here you go. 1) Why is consensual extramarital sex wrong? Sex is a pleasant and a beautiful thing, and people mostly do it to enjoy or love each other; in other words, it’s entirely possible to have sex with a person without wanting to hurt them (whereas it seems stealing and murder always contain some malicious intent in them). So, why is illicit sex wrong, if it is not motivated by malice, and it doesn’t obviously harm either participant? 2) What is romance, precisely? You could say “a love that is greater, more powerful than all the other loves,” but first, what does that even mean, and what qualities does this greater love have that the other loves do not? Second, how could there be any love greater than the love that exists between God the Father and God the Son? Since (I think) human relationships were made to mimic and portray divine realities, shouldn’t the filial relationship be attended with the greatest love, and does this mean we need to reassess the levels of our affection for our various family members? 3) Why did God never outlaw polygamy in the Bible? We find it atrocious, disgusting, utterly unromantic – why do we find it so, is this impression derived from a cultural or moral root? 4) Is romantic love sinful favoritism? It seems to be, and this question should scare us pretty well. For how cold, how lifeless, how awful would a marriage be where the husband could not say to his wife “you are the most beautiful, the most wonderful woman in the world” and could not buy flowers or candies or dresses for her, because he could not afford to buy such treats for all the women he’s friends with? 5) If “Love is blind” as they say, wouldn’t consciously stepping into romance be willful self-deception, and thus be wrong? Furthermore, continuing in romance knowing that it caused one to perceived the beloved as better than he/she actually is, would amount to persistently encouraging a self delusion. That would be walking in sin, and as such would amount to apostasy (cf I John 1:6) . 6) What exactly is lust? All guys acknowledge that is very hard to keep from imagining having sex with the wonderfully attractive girls you walk past every day and the gorgeous supermodels all over the media. If God did not want men to think about sex before marriage, why did he give them a psyche that imagines/thinks about sex on average, what’s that statistic, every five seconds? The traditional view is that for an unmarried man to deliberately imagine having sex with any woman is wrong (cf. Mcquilkin’s Biblical Ethics). However, what are the parallels to this? It’s not bad to envision something that would be good to do in the future, and it’s not bad to picture doing something that would be good to do in the future, even if it would not be good to do right now. On the practical level, it makes a lot of sense for a basketball player to think about how he will take a shot, even if he’s tightly defended and shouldn’t begin taking the shot just yet. On the moral level, if you go out to a grocery store and are looking over some firewood they sell there, it’s completely acceptable to imagine setting fire to the logs you see on the stack and picture how you would spark them – would it be with pine needles, firestarter, gasoline (yay!)? – even though it would be wrong, a form of vandalism and stealing, to set fire to them right at that moment. In other words, why would it be wrong for an unmarried boyfriend and girlfriend to independently imagine they were married to each other, and imagine having sex within that context? This is one of the biggest questions to answer about how to define lust rightly. If you’ve read this, I’ve posed an objection which may cause you to question the usual definition of lust, and believe that thoughts you’ve previously been were dirty are actually acceptable to have. I admit, I do not hold to the traditional definition of lust, but as you conduct your thought life, I refer you to the Holy Spirit. Don’t settle on any definition, don’t entertain any thought if you have doubts about it being acceptable. Romans 14:22 says if you have doubts about the rightness of any action you might do, don’t do it, for “whatever is not of faith is sin.” These are very deep and potentially dangerous waters we are swimming in here. If you doubt whether it’s ok to picture a friend of the opposite gender with his/her clothes off, DO NOT DO IT. I presently hold that many of the sexual fantasies individuals have are wrong not because they are inherently evil (as having fantasies about committing a murder would be), but because they are had with the wrong mindset and for wrong motivations. It would be totally suitable for a pastor to hope for applause from a congregation after a sermon as encouragement in doing the Lord’s work or a sign he has done as God wants by letting his light shine before men, but if he hopes for applause just because he wants his rhetorical skill affirmed, if, for him, God’s approval comes as an afterthought to men’s approval, then his motivations are skewed and impure, and his wish - which is not inherently evil - is poisoned and made evil by his mindset in it. At present, I think this is the main way tons and tons of sexual fantasies are made wrong. And I'm praying about all this stuff hard. 7) What is the oneflesh? Genesis 2:24’s a man shall leave his parents and cleave to his wife, and they shall become oneflesh? Does this mean – what if castrata or physically deformed individuals got married – they couldn’t have sex – would they still be oneflesh? What about the boyfriends and girlfriends that are emotionally and commitment-wise closer to each other than the soldier who has a one-night stand with a prostitute – how could the soldier be oneflesh with the prostitute, which he certainly is (cf. I Cor 6:15-6), ? Also, say a polygamist has sex with his first wife on Tuesday, and with his second wife on Friday. When he has sex with his second wife on Friday, does he stop becoming oneflesh with the first wife he embraced on Tuesday? Where does this stuff end? 8) What is the purpose of sex/marriage, and how does this have implications for the propriety of birth control? 9) In my experience, it seems men have a hard time loving those whom they can’t respect. Additionally, one of the hallmarks of great romance is that the partners think of each other as equally important and capable overall (cf much ado about nothing, others). In light of this, how is it even possible for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5), and to engage in ideal and, dare I say it?, awesome romances, if they are to “live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel.” And how do you, as a man, consider your wife as equally important as yourself, when the Bible just calls her your “helper” (Gen. 1), when she is supposed to submit to you in everything (Eph. 5), ? How does a woman 1) become sure if God means obedience and subservience by submission, and, if this is so – as I presently think it is - 2) understand the wisdom of God in assigning her this role, and 3) bring herself to live accordingly, especially when her husband is acting unintelligently or selfishly, and the men in the Church do not take charge or the initiative? 10) Why isn’t marriage going to be in heaven (Matt 22, Luke 20, Mark 12), and if marriage isn’t going to be in heaven, how are there infants and childbearing in heaven, as is suggested by Isa 11:8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. and Isa 65:23 They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them? How does this relate to Paul’s less than positive view of marriage in I Cor 7, especially his line in verse 29 “From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none?” So, there are the main questions of the book, and the ways they get answered can sometimes be surprising. The trick is, these matters are quite philosophical and exegetical, while also immensely practical – and I plan to interweave solely practical stuff, which doesn’t require great brilliance to get help from, as well. But how do you get everyone to get through and generally understand and enjoy the deep parts so they will not miss out on the practical ones even if they don’t completely understand the complex ones? So, there’s time travel, symbolic characters, journeys to the great theologians and even plato, and a love interest for the main character. That’s pretty much the down low on the story there, without getting into specifics. And I hope it doesn’t bother you that I throw out so many questions, without providing answers. Mostly I think I have the answers to these, but they are really long, to be true. But sometimes knowing the questions you want and need answered is half the battle or even more. Well, I hope this has been edifying, I know it’s been a lot. It was really good for me to say, even if it may be a little much to be a joyous thing for you to receive right now. Much love - Jim | | |
| I really am sorry that students don't hear this earlier. If I ever manage to have children, it would be very nice to home school them, and since they will be children of their father there's next to no chance they won't inherit my tendency to ask impertinent 'why' questions. I'd like to be ready to answer them, at least some of them, and... there's always the lash for whoever asks the question that makes daddy feel stupid because he doesn't know how to answer it. But I would never do that. I like getting questions. Might ask them to research to find the answers i don't know, though.
Anyways, the very obvious question to ask about school is, "Why are we learning this stuff?" I never got a satisfying answer to these inquiries, especially about math, and i don't pretend that i have an answer that would be sufficient for a college student. But something big enough for elementary school kids, that I might have.
The first reply is that the government demands that kids spend 13 some years of their life in school, doing some minimal level of learning. You need to show the state that you've comprehended a certain amount of the knowledge it's forced down your throat, or it won't let you out of it's education system. So we learn the basic subjects to keep the state from pouncing on us.
The second is that knowledge can maximize the effectiveness of one's actions. A simple example is that if you know cheese gets moldy after sitting out in the open too long, this knowledge may leads you to put the cheese back in the refrigerator. If you were trying to keep yourself healthy but did not know to quickly put the cheese back in the cold, you might end up eating moldy cheese and get sick. Thus, the knowledge about mold could help you remain healthy - it could maximize the effectiveness of your attempt to stay healthy.
But what enhancements do the different kinds of knowledge bring?
History, the study of 'how what is here got to be here' is a good example, even though some have called it the "Great Relativizing Discipline." First, knowing history instructs you on where to look for things. If you want to see how bad human depravity can get, history will tell you to go to the Holocaust for examples; if you want to know how much money matters to people, history will point you to the Great Depression to show you the despair people have when they lose their money. To some degree, history is useful for viewing the problems of the past to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. The best example of this is the turn from monarchic government to democratic government; too many kings were abusing their power, like George III of England and Louis XIV of France, so a rabble of colonists get together and decide they don't want to allow any one person to wield supreme authority, they want checks and balances, and thus saved a lot of trouble for their descendants. I consider sociology and political science subsets of history, or blends of history and english, so i won't state them independently.
Personally, I would want to study science just because i find it interesting, and so i hope that makes up for the thinness of the following answer. The straightforward reason schools make you learn science is because it opens up a lot of job opportunities, opportunities which require very specialized training. Doctors, marine biologists, engineers, those in the pharmaceutics industry - they all need science to make their medicine and practices effective. It also helps you manage your resources optimally - if you want to plant tomatoes in your backyard, and you have a patch of dark, moist dirt and a spot with hard, red clay, science would be what told you that the area with dark soil would give better fruit. And that 'managing resources optimally' element is one facet of keeping the Creation Mandate, so maybe this answer isn't too shallow after all. And, by the way, mathematics and computer science and psychology are here conflated with science.
English is a bit more tricky - fortunately, i have more experience with it than with science, so my answer might be more insightful. We must agree that sharing ideas with our neighbors is a fantastic part of showing love: everything jesus did was motivated by love, and methinks he shared quite a number of ideas. Moreover, didn't you enjoy it, didn't it fascinate you the first time you heard of a time machine, or of an engine, or of hemophilia, in which the blood doesn't clot. But explaining a time machine would be miserably difficult without specific words like 'time' and 'machine' : "there's this thing that moves you to a different place, and not just a different place, but a place that was before" is a bit cumbersome. And the confusion we'd have without grammar would make comprehension ridiculous "travel machine in back time lets a you return and time" can't be understood, but "A time machine lets you return So the grammatical and vocabulary side of english is valuable because it helps us share ideas.
What about the literature side, though? The answer for this is basically the same as the answer for art. Sure, we are somewhat sensitive: we can say that murder is atrocious, that the human brain is an amazing machine, that sunsets are pretty, but seeing these truths illustrated and expressed a thousand different ways will maintains or even increase our original apprecation for these truths. After reading a Sherlock Holmes ystery, I can say much more genuinely, "God gave us awesome brains" than i can on an average day. As it applies to others, sob over the moving account of Stonewall Jackson's death in Gods and Generals, this sympathy for the fictional characters may help us empathize with those who are bereaved in real life, for death truly is a horrendous thing. It may help us mourn with those who mourn, as we should. And a thrilling description of the sidereal beauty of the heavens may incite us to praise God for His creation - that is just as it should be. So literature is useful, especially on the level of honest emotion.
And now we move to the queen and her handmaiden, theology and philosophy. An interesting metaphor, that: i take it to mean that philosophy beautifies theology, as a handmaiden would help a queen with her makeup, and sends and explains messages for theology, as a very esteemed handmaiden might for a queen. Not that God needs beautifying.
The key function of philosophy is to fill in the gaps that the other subjects leave, the things that everyone notices but few have time to talk about. The conclusions of all the other disciplines remain a little bit loose until philosophy steps in; when she does, she either fastens their conclusions down or proves the matter must be referred to theology. Occasionally she will annihilate a conclusion, but that is not her most frequent response.
Yet perhaps the most important gift philosophy has provided us with was with an instance of annihilation. Men have long been perplexed about how, if God created everything (Col 1:16), and God can do anything (Mat 19:6), and God is entirely good (Isaiah 6), evil can still exist. Wouldn't God destroy evil, if he were completely powerful and good- if he created everything, why would he have made it in the first place?
Then a philosopher was given the idea that perhaps evil isn't a thing. Consider a hole - it is not a thing, it is the lack of a thing - of the dirt or concrete or whatever material surrounds the space you call the hole. Likewise, couldn't evil be an emptiness, a hollowness - after all, one of the worst persons we can think of is one who wants his life to be empty of meaning so he can do whatever twisted thing he pleases. So philosophy contributed the privation theory of evil; that to talk of evil isn't to talk of any real thing - it is just a way of referring to occasions when something not as good as what might have happened happens. Thus evil came to be because God gave man free will to choose between lesser good (evil) and greater good (good), and Adam ate the fruit and chose the lesser good - the evil. And so handmaiden philosophy showed the world that maybe queen theology wasn't so bad after all.
But usually philosophy does tamer things. From ancient times, persons from every field had used the concept of cause and effect, but no one bothered to prove such things as cause and effect did exist. But, through the agency of Hume and Kant's philosophies (cause), it became easy for a christian to see that cause and effect could not be proven, but did exist, since theology shows God causes things. Exo 9:18 Behold, about this time tomorrow I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.
So i hope my kids don't ask this final question, but i'll prepare a response for it anyway. They could wonder why one should study theology, and then they would pass into worlds beyond words. Why study theology? Oh, God commands it, yes - and all eternal life is is knowledge of God, and maybe every subject is theology because God made everything, and the things He made reflect Him, so whenever you learn something you learn a little about God. These are all possible answers. But i think the best answer i could give them would be to return a question for their question. Yes, that's what i'd say: I'd say, "Why wouldn't you?"
Hope It's Been Edifying! (HIBE!) -- Jim
PS - With these first few posts, I wish i could say something more meaningful, like some of my friends do. But i can't give what i don't already have, and the things i'd like to say about the holy spirit and the basics of the christian life i don't have enough yet. So, until then, I hope you like these smaller things too. Luvya! Jim
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Important philosophical questions about sports:
1) what exactly is a sport
2) what good
purposes do playing sports serve, and which are unique from fitness
training
3) how to play
sports in the most physically beneficial way
4) how can the
acts of physical violence in contact sports show love to the
opponent(s)
5) how can
one compete in a selfless manner
Pertaining to Question 1: what
exactly is a sport
A) Attention must be
paid to ensure that the definition of “sport” does not itself imply immorality.
For example, if “sport” were defined as “bullfighting: slaying bulls for
entertainment and athletic challenge” one might quickly assess “sport” to be
unethical since “a righteous man cares for the life of his beast” Proverbs
12:10. But selecting a useful, widely-hailed definition of sport proves very
difficult.
B) For reasons I
defend elsewhere, I submit six categories of action historically related to the
word “sport.”
1) Pastime:
noncompetitive activity done in leisure (e.g. teasing, hunting)
2) Contest:
non-athletic competition (e.g. board games, marbles)
3) Athletic
evaluation: a competitive display of athleticism for which subjective judging
determines the victor (e.g. dance, figure skating)
4) Athletic
competition: a competitive athletic activity with objective rules and
measurements, in which competitors cannot practice defense (e.g. track and
field, swimming)
5) Sport: an
athletic competition which integrates defense – direct obstruction of the
performance of opponent(s) (basketball, baseball)
6) Contact
Sport: a sport which incorporates physical violence in regular play (football,
rugby)
Pertaining to question 2:
what good purposes do playing sports serve, and which are unique from fitness
training
A) Axioms
a. I Cor 6:19 declares cultivating
(maintaining and/or increasing) one’s physical abilities and appearance to be a
positive mode of activity
b. Fitness training is
non-competitive
c. Sports are good because: they
cultivate physical ability/health (strength, speed, coordination, flexibility,
endurance), self-esteem, social skills, discipline, courage, and so
on
Usually, sports benefits
unique from those of fitness training include:
1) Sports facilitate display of
physical prowess in public, aiding one’s "light to shine before men." Conversely,
most fitness training is inhospitable and uninteresting for public viewing (ex.
watching football versus watching someone do sit-ups). This is especially true
with team sports; isn’t it far more fascinating to watch a whole squadron of
rugby players smashing into each other and darting around fluidly than one
person jogging alone?
2) Sports require adaptation to
unpredictable circumstances, whereas most fitness training is predictable. In
basketball you do not know if the man you’re defending will try to dribble
around you or fake and shoot over you or pass the ball off, so you must be ready
to react to whatever comes. Basketball, like other sports, calls for a blend of
anticipating givens and reacting to variables. Additionally, the whole strategy
of a team’s approach may need to be altered on the fly, when a star player gets
injured or the other team implements an unexpected style of play, so sports
reward the one who has a wide range of skills available when he successfully
adjusts to a new position or tactic. Fitness training does not contain many
variables, and thus does not train one to adapt favorably: a runner’s distance
to be traveled is known beforehand, the floor does not shift as one takes yoga
positions, gravity does not all of a sudden become more intense so the
difficulty of jumping over hurdles changes during a run.
3) Sports prepare one to deal with
true adversaries by treating opponents as simulated antagonists. Everyone locks
horns with an enemy someday - at the minimum, struggles with Satan plague all.
Sports train one to overcome and obstruct others; but athletic competitions
only teach one to outdo others and fitness training at best instructs one to
co-operate with others, for example, when acrobats work together to build a
human pyramid or fling a member of the troupe into the air. So long as the
skills of obstructing and overcoming others are only used when necessary, sports
perform an helpful function that athletic competitions and fitness training do
not. This assumes physical and mental discipline have crossover value for
cultivating spiritual and moral discipline, but this is an easy and frequently
made assumption and personal experience shows its truth.
Continuities
between sports and fitness training:
1) Both cultivate
physical abilities
2) Both cultivate
teamwork, rapport, and social skills.
Drawbacks unique
to sport absent in fitness training:
1) sports require more materials
and participants to engage in, usually
2) sports generally have a higher
probability of injury
Regarding question 3: how to
play sports in the most physically beneficial way
Suppose a person walks
out onto the field as a game goes on, but does not attempt to catch a ball or
swing a bat or sprint around. This man will not get an efficient workout, even
if he is technically playing the game. He fails to improve his body because his
manner of involving himself in the sport is all wrong. Thus his approach is not
the best way of involving oneself in sport, but - what is?
The assumption one makes about
the mechanism of any sport is that if both teams vigorously strive to win, it
will reward the team which applies a better combination of physical ability and
mental aptitude towards success with victory. Thus, players sincerely
endeavoring to win will get a better workout than those idling around, and part
of a proper approach to sports includes making an effort to win.
However, suppose
that one minute is left in a football game and the team in possession of the
ball has the lead by 3 points. They decide to kneel the football and let the
clock run out, rather than risking a pass which could lead to an interception or
fumble and eventually, the other team winning. While this move wisely manages
the team’s likelihood of triumph, it doesn’t grant the players the optimum
workout. During the last minute the players are not blocking or racing around
or exerting their bodies in any manner, but standing still.
Thus, a well
designed sport will yield the optimal workout when all participants attempt to
push their team to a victory that is as decisive as possible. The nonstop,
superlatively intense activity required to gain the maximum positive
differential between the score of one’s team and the score of the opponent’s
team will provide the ultimate workout. Of course, this idea doesn’t mean
kneeling the ball would have been unethical in the scenario above – I would have
kneeled if I were the quarterback – it just means that if one’s only purpose in
playing sports is to get the prime workout, kneeling the ball doesn’t fit one’s
purpose and is a bad idea.
But this approach
to “create the maximum positive differential in your team’s score compared to
your opponents score” that I support (hereafter called MPD for maximum positive
differential) raises questions about playing dirty and cheating, for doing so
may assist one’s team more than playing legally would. It also makes one wonder
if this policy supports injuring another player intentionally. Without
explaining all the underlying reasons, I’ll tell you what I’ve concluded.
Deliberately injuring another
player is unacceptable, because the main purpose of sport is to cultivate the
bodily health of all involved. So injuring another player would defeat the
purpose of sport. Next, when cheating unduly endangers the health of others,
doing it is out of the question. On the other hand, sometimes cheating does not
give either team an unfair advantage, as when a ref fails to call holding or
traveling no matter which team does it. In this case, cheating is ok if the
other team won’t be hugely offended by it, and especially if the other team is
making violations and fouls without penalty already. When both teams commit the
same violations freely, it’s as if the teams have made an implicit agreement to
play by new rules, to play a new sport. And making up a new sport and playing it
is perfectly kosher as far as morals are concerned.
As for questions 4 and
5:
how can the acts
of physical violence in contact sports show love to the opponent(s) and how can
one compete in a selfless manner
A cursory answer, but
relevant nonetheless. To understand how selfless love can motivate physical
violence, consider the answer a linebacker might give to the question, “How do
you show love to an opponent as you attempt to tackle him?" He might reply "My
attempt shows him love, because it allows him to attempt to push me off or evade
me, test if he can overcome my pursuit, implement different tactics for
overcoming me, develop a proper fear of being tackled, discover how much pain he
can take, and it also shows him and others how to tackle.” Similarly, selfless
love can motivate action in non-contact sports: “I throw my hardest fastball
that the batter can have the satisfaction of connecting with a difficult pitch
if he hits it, I try to hit the ball when I’m at bat so the pitcher may find out
which pitches work and which don’t” and so on. | | |
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