Thoughts in the Night (or, Perhaps)

To be human is to exist in the tension between despising the world as it is and knowing that you can do nothing about it. Perhaps that is why suicide is so damnable: it is a rejection of your humanity, of that glorious struggle against that which cannot be beaten, i.e., the world as it is.
Cooperation as redemption is a lie because cooperation is not possible. History is littered with examples of where humanity, in a glorious attempt to coalesce and rise out of the ashes, is immediately consumed by some former or new ill unperceived and yet somehow of our own making. Perhaps history is no more than collective humanity's record of when and where it slits its own throat.
Perhaps the image of the ghost is apropos for humanity: unreality trapped in ceaseless deathlessness. Like all ghosts, we are bound by some damnable link to the region of our demise where we walk as disembodied shades in the night; and no matter how many times we band together in humanistic coalitions, we remain in the land of the dead.
Yet the image of the phoenix is apropos as well, for it is a startling quintessence of human nature: hope that never dies, the indomitable spirit. Beneath (and perhaps in the midst of) our troubled layers, there still burns a last vestige of desire, a yet unyielding ember that dreams of restoration, eucatastrophe, redemption, victory. When the breath of God blows on that dying coal, what a fire it kindles!
It is indeed victory that God promises those who follow Him; not meaningless words and phrases, but victory, final and sweet. Victory over the world, victory over death, victory over guilt, victory over the monsters, victory over all the things that have haunted mankind out of the depths of our dark antiquity. That is perhaps the greatest goodness that the gospel produces.

I Told You So

Back in 2007, in the hey day of "The Counter Hour Movement" and other such collegic oddities, I wrote a blog entry titled “The Direction of a Certain Liberal Arts College,” or something like that. In it I said basically everything that a friend of mine said (although she said it with much more detail and passion than I). In this long lost entry, I made a prediction of sorts that went something like this: due to the current misguided and destructive administrative agenda foisted upon the college, within ten years Crichton College will be no more.

I made that prediction at the end of ’07. Crichton officially folded at the beginning of ’09. I suppose a little over a year is “within” ten years.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I seem to recall that Crichton didn’t have financial problems. Yes, we were a small college. Yes, we sometimes felt like we were running on a shoestring budget at times; but ultimately the college soldiered on with fresh tuition and interested donors. Why? My fervent claim is because we knew who we were and what we were about, and that identity gave us strength.

What exactly were we? Well, we were not an urban missions hub. We were not an open door, pandering, lackluster academic institution. We were not a ‘jonnie-come-lately” to bigger, badder Christian universities. We were not a collection of “recovering racists.” We were a Christian Liberal Arts college, dedicated to academic excellence and strong spiritual development. We were dedicated to the bizarre and absurd proposition that our students could change the world, not through racial reconciliation, not through education to all regardless of their academic credentials (e.g., can they even write?), not through urban development, not through “reaching upward,” but through critical thinking and spiritual growth. That, of course, is the hidden truth behind Crichton’s old motto (does anybody even remember it?): “Think Critically, Grow Spiritual, Change the World.”

This sense of academic excellence and strong spiritual development, this love of learning and love of God, was the sole tie that bound us together. We didn't need racial reconciliation awareness, we didn't need “red revolutions,” we didn't need open dialogue. All we needed was that beautiful scholasticism, the dance of faith and reason. We were united as thinkers and saints; we became divided as whites and blacks, “snobs” and “victims,” “Pharisees” and everyone else, and a house divided against itself never stands. Perhaps, just perhaps, if Crichon had not lost that initial vision and purpose, if it had not lost its mind, then perhaps the board of directors (when deciding the fate of Crichton's Liberal Arts program) would have found something worth saving. Apparently, they didn't, and that to our shame.

Farewell, dear Crichton. We knew thee well and loved thee more, though many loved you less.

Behold the Modern Man

Spoken by Malcolm Muggeridge from the book "Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith":

It has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, his own vulnerability out of his own strength; himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary, battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.

Read it and Weep

All I can say is that it's about time someone said it.

Though I am a Conservative (more precisely, a Federalist Republican Conservative), I have avoided like the plague discussions about President Bush amongst my peers and even my friends precisely because nobody engages in a serious and honest discussion about him. Everyone either melts into a stinking pile of irrational and virile hatred, or they try and be both clever and popular by taking seemingly innocuous pot-shots at the man with either irrelevancies (like his supposed speech impediment) or media-perpetuated myths (like "cowboy diplomacy" or "spying on Americans"). Throughout the fashionable days of Bush-bashing, I found myself forced to sit back and keep my mouth shut.

However, now that Bush is on his way out, and everyone is going gaga over the newly Anointed One (I swear, the guy's more popular than Jesus right now), I will fling my cards on the table, if for no other reason than to hear myself state what I have believed for eight years:

I do not agree with everything that Bush did (illegal immigration policies, some expansion of government, and lack of communication with the American people to name a few), but I honestly believe that come some ten to twenty years down the road (maybe even sooner), we will look back on the Bush presidency and realize that it wasn't even 1/100th as bad as we were lead to believe. We will look back with shame at calling his presidency "the worst in American history," and will return that particular infamy back to where it belongs: with Jimmy Carter. We will look back with regret at how unfairly and cruelly we treated a man who protected this nation for eight years and struck fear into the hearts of our enemies. We will look back in anger at not only the deceptive media who lead us along in Bush-bashing like lambs to the slaughter, but also at ourselves for being so easily strung along. That is what I believe. The man was not perfect (who is?), but I vehemently deny that he was the devil incarnate, an idiot, or any of the other disgraceful epitaphs that have been shameful dumped upon him by an atrocious media, pinheaded west/east coast elites, and a foolish American public. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Oswald Chambers and the Law of Antagonism

From Oswald Chamber's book, My Utmost for His Highest:

Life without war is impossible either in nature or in grace. The basis of physical, mental, moral, and spiritual life is antagonism. This is the open fact of life.
Health is the balance between physical life and external nature, and it is maintained only by sufficient vitality on the inside against things on the outside. Everything outside my physical life is designed to put me to death. Things which keep me going when I am alive, disintegrate me when I am dead. If I have enough fighting power, I produce the balance of health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a vigorous mental life, I have to fight, and in that way the mental balance called 'thought' is produced.
Morally it is the same. Everything that does not partake of the nature of virtue is the enemy of virtue in me, and whether I overcome [them] and produce virtue depends on what moral caliber I have. Immediately I fight, I am moral in that particular. No man is virtuous because he cannot help it; virtue is acquired.
It is the same spiritually as well. Jesus said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation," i.e., everything that is not spiritual makes for my undoing, but "be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." I have to learn to score off the things that come against me, and in that way produce the balance of holiness; then it becomes a delight to meet opposition.

Keep Your Enemies Closer

It is my fervent belief that in order to properly engage error and heresy as critical thinking, engaging Christians, we must have a proper perspective on what those hostile to Christianity actually think. Although there are plenty of books by Christians that explain what they think, sometimes it's better to hear it from the opposition's own mouth. Thus, I submit to you the following comment left on a Christian blog that I stumbled across. I have never heard such a vehement atheistic attitude stated so concisely and precisely. Read carefully, and listen to what is being said:

"It doesn't matter what Hitchens said to you because your mind is made-up, slammed shut. But Hitchens pointed out that the Bible is full of errors, bad science, dangerous dogma and is a man-made and socially constructed book. Anyone who claims to get their morals from this highly immoral book is themselves highly immoral and likely very dangerous, not to mention superstitious and childish. Hitchens opponent was reduced to a babbling idiot and a liar, in other words he was exposed as a typical undereducated fundamentalist wacko. It's pretty obvious Hitchens is a smart guy and this Williams guy is an idiot. This is why debates like this are so rare. The Christians always lose them and look foolish even to many of their own. But not closed-minded people like [you].

"It is not accidental that Christianity regards pride as a major sin. A man of self-esteem is an unlikely candidate for the master-slave relationship that Christianity offers him. A man lacking in self esteem, however, a man ridden with guilt and self-doubt, will frequently prefer the apparent security of Christianity over independence and find comfort in the thought that, for the price of total submissiveness, God will love and protect him.

"In exchange for obedience, Christianity offers salvation, that there is something to be saved from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy man living in a natural intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, man is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can induce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can induce salvation.

"The fundamental teaching of Jesus-the demand for conformity thus gives rise to a fundamental and viciously destructive teaching of Christianity: That some beliefs lie beyond the scope of criticism, and that to question them is sinful, or morally wrong. By Christianity declares itself and enemy of truth and of the faculty by which man arrives at truth-reason."

Thus is the spirit of atheism. Thus is where the battle lies. Prepare yourselves against them, my friends. Know your God, know your Bible, know your faith, because they obviously have no clue what Christianity really is.

The Fallacy of Centrism in American Politics

One of the biggest fallacies ever committed in modern American politics is the fallacy of Centrism, a political ideology that seeks the "middle ground" between different political ideologies. This fallacy has been perpetrated primarily by moderates, who are merely centrist in disguise. Centrism is a fallacy in American politics because within the framework of American politics, Centrism can never work.

By definition, Centrism is the 'happy medium' between extremes, an attempt to not merely compromise between different political ideologies, but actually amalgamate their views to produce more excellent results. It is a very Hegelian in its dialectal approach to things: take the thesis and the antithesis and merge them into a synthesis. Such a political ideology is actually quite ideal for any society, if you live in a society with merely different political views.

It is in that last point that Centrism fails in American politics, for American politics contain only two dominant political ideologies (Liberalism and Conservatism), and they are not different; they are oppositional, i.e., they claim their views to be true and the views of the other to be false, not different. There is no middle ground between the two, no commonality between them that can even begin to serve some sort of open dialogue. Their views of government (big government vs. limited government), economics (socialism vs. free market), and nationality (democracy vs. republic), amongst other things, are irreconcilable, and any attempts to reconcile them are asinine. The "Gang of 10/20" legislation during the summer is a prime example of the futility of trying to arrive at middle roads between oppositional views. You get lame duck legislation, useless pieces of paper that effect nothing.

The sooner we stop this wimpy "let's all get along" attitude, and return to the hard truth that, in American politics, someone is truly wrong and the other truly right, the better. Compromises between polar opposites produces only inaction, as there is no way to satisfy their views without cancelling each other out.

A False Dichotomy

While scanning iTunes for new music, I kept running across an annoying thought trend throughout almost every review of the Christian bands I was checking out. The reviews basically said that that these bands not only sing of "Christian" issues like faith, the Bible, and God, (amongst others), but also "non-Christian" issues like pain, angst, doubt, and despair (amongst others). This dichotomy blew my mind. Are there really people out there who actually think that pain, angst, doubt, and despair (amongst others) are not "Christian" issues? Does the ideology that follows Christ, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," have no say in such things? I think not. There is no such thing as "non-Christian" issues, because Christianity (at bottom) is dealing with the truth, i.e., that which conforms to reality, that which is real and actual. Thus, it touches all issues, and therefore there is no such thing as "non-Christian" issues.

Two things: First, this is not to say that the Bible has a direct answer to everything (ex: no verse directly mentions cloning). As Mr. Schaeffer would say, the Bible gives us true truth, not exhaustive truth. Be that as it may, the Bible still gives us the groundwork whereby we can apply our minds to any and all issues and subjects, and engage anything either directly or indirectly (ex: the Bible does not mention cloning, but it does say something about the proper nature and view of sex and reproduction). No matter what you are engaging, you do not need to check your Christianity at the door.

Second, I am not talking about the whole "sacred/secular" debate (i.e., is there a "sacred" and a "secular," and what are they). That is another thing entirely. What I am talking about (and disputing with) is the notion that there are some issues Christianity does not touch, or worse still, cannot touch. I am defiantly claiming that there are no issues that Christianity does or cannot touch in some way.

Mere Subterfuge

This article by an atheist (let's call him "Quark") proportedly lays down an "unsolvable" puzzle. I would normally ignore such trivial pursuits, but Quark also claims that his puzzle's 'unsolvability' has implications for the existence of God. As such, a gauntlet has been thrown, and I accept it. I will see if I can solve the unsolvable (something we pesky Christians always try to do).

The article is short, but I'll still give a summary. There is an old logic puzzle that asks, "If you came to a crossroads and didn't know which way to go, and two men were standing at the same crossroads, and you knew that one always lies and one always tells the truth, and you can only ask one question to these two men, what one question could you ask them to ascertain the correct way to go?" Somehow, the atheist who wrote this article uses this logic puzzle to "prove" that there is no way to know which religion is right and which one is wrong because (according to him) once you add more liars to the mix, the logic puzzle becomes "unsolvable," i.e., there is no way to tell who is the truth-teller amongst all the liars. I would like to try and solve it if I may (as well as point out a few criticisms).

Quark correctly asserts that the one question you can ask to solve the puzzle is to ask, "Which road would he tell me [is the right way]?" In this scenario, the two men are forced to answer the way the other one would answer. Thus, the liar will lie about the way the truth-teller would say, and therefore say the wrong way; likewise, the truth-teller would truthful tell the way the lair would recommend, which is also the wrong way. Therefore, you would go the opposite direction they both mentioned. So far so good.

Quark goes awry, however, when he claims that adding more liars to the mix (making the lie-truth ratio 4-1) makes the question "unsolvable." You can determine, even in this scenario, who is telling the truth and who is not, and you can do it by asking them all the same exact question: "Which road would they tell me to take?" It works slightly different than before, but the result is the same. It works like this: the truth-teller is the only one who will say that the four other men would say the same thing; conversely, the liars will always say that three of the other men would say the same thing but one would be different.

Remember: according to our scenario, there are still only two ways to go, with only one way being right. The possible lies and truths available to the liars and truth-teller are limited to only two responses: this way or that way. Consequently, the liars will all be in agreement with there answer (because they all lie), but the truth-teller will be the lone dissenter (because he alone tells the truth). Thus (as said before), if the man you ask answers that all four of the other men would say the same thing, you know that you are dealing with the truth-teller; likewise, if the man you ask answers that three of the men would say one thing and one would say another, you know that you are dealing with a liar. Paradoxically, the liar cannot lie about the truth-teller's dissension; if the lairs are saying one way, but the truth-teller another, and there is only two ways to go with only one being right, then no matter what a liar says, he will always have one of the other four as being different.

The result is that you know who is who, and thus you can navigate your decision: whatever the truth-teller says about the other four, you should go the opposite way (because he is truthfully telling what the liars would say, which is a lie); whatever the liars say (watch this!), you should follow whatever direction the liar says that three of the four men say because he will lie about what the liars would say and thus tell you the truth (of course he will lie about the truth-teller, who you will recognize because he is the only dissenter)! Liars lying about liar's lies and thus telling the truth; as you can see, Quark was dead wrong when he said the scenario was "unsolvable". Quite the contrary, the puzzle actually becomes easier, because you will easily know who is who and which way to go because the liars will lie about the other liar's lies and thus tell you the truth (which you will be able to identify). In addition, this scenario can work no matter how many liars you insert, because you can always identify the truth-teller as the lone dissenter (and the liars will always lie about liar's lies, etc.). Thus, I have solved the "unsolvable" puzzle. Since I obviously won't be getting a cookie for my efforts, I will move on to my criticisms.

Quark makes a logical snafu when he tries to apply his "unsolvable" scenario to world religions. First of all, the scenario is no longer "unsolvable." It is actually easier to solve. Thus, his hopes to use his unsolvable puzzle for atheistic purposes are utterly dashed, as his original scenario no longer works for his purposes.

Second of all, however, even if the original scenario was indeed "unsolvable," it would still not apply for one small yet vital reason: in the original scenario, there are only two paths with one right way; in the world religions analogy, however, there are now multiple paths with only one right way. Since the structure of the puzzle has fundamentally changed (for the number of paths is key to the puzzle), any applications made in the original puzzle cannot apply to this new analogy because this new analogy is based on a completely different puzzle: the puzzle has changed from a two path/one right way structure to a multiple path/one right way structure. This analogy has introduced a scenario that is fundamentally different from the original scenario, and thus Quark's attempts to apply the original scenario to this new scenario is erroneous.

Let's look at this new puzzle laid down by Quark: "Imagine we replace the town [you are trying to reach] with Heaven, and replace the men with a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim, and add a road for each. How can you determine who is telling the truth and who is not?" Quark's solution? "All you can do is just pick a direction and go." What's his conclusion then? "That doesn't seem like something that was set up by the supreme intellect in the universe. That strategy violates the principle of minimizing as much uncertainty as possible to increase the likelihood of a successful outcome."

Now, the short (and Christian) answer to the puzzle is that God is not only there (i.e., He exist) but is also not silent (i.e., He has made Himself known). Aside from general revelation (i.e., creation [Romans 1:19, 20] and mankind's "mannishness" [Romans 2:12-15]), there is special revelation: the word (i.e., the Bible) and the Word (i.e., the Incarnation [John 1:1, 14; Hebrews 1:1-4]). Not only did God drop signs of His presence in our world and in ourselves, He also wrote a book and came down in person to tell us that He is there and all that He says is true. In Quark's scenario, this is the equivalent of the owner and founder of the town coming down to you and telling you, "That's the right way." Then he leaves you his notes on the subject so you do not forget what He said. This same scenario can not only answer this multiple path/one right way scenario, but also the "black box" scenario (i.e., you can know what is inside the impenetrable box if what is inside the box [1] is there, and [2] is not silent).

Of course, atheists will claim, "The bible is full of errors!" "Jesus never existed!" "The Bible's claims have been disproved!" "Jesus was not God!" That is my point, however. I have just spent the last few paragraphs solving an "unsolvable" logic puzzle that could be applied to world religions only to find that the whole atheistic argument here was not about a logic puzzle or world religions at all; this was about Christ and the Bible. Quark's world religion scenario is unsolvable only if you assume that Christ and the Bible (as well as creation and man's humanity) are discounted from the get-go. It sounds like Quark is doing a new thing, but he is not. He is simply dressing up old issues in new clothes, clothes that do not fit or even match. His "unsolvable logic puzzle" is mere subterfuge disguising the real issues, which are Christ and the Bible, not the presence of world religions against the reality of God; if Christ is God and the Bible is true, then the presence of world religions is irrelevant in regards to the reality of God.

To my fellow believers, remember: to be an engaging, critically thinking Christian means you hear the issues behind the issues. Atheists will mount what seems to be innumerable arguments against your faith, but do not be fooled; they are merely blowing smoke to cover the few real issues that they actually have. The real issues are were the battles must be fought, and atheist's smokescreens will only serve to cloud the issues from you. You must learn to disperse such clouds.

I.D. Required

One of the common themes touted amongst postmodern/emergent types is the despisement of metanarratives (i.e., a worldview, an overarching structure of concepts that inform your view of the world). A direct result of this despisement is the outcry, "Don't label me!" What people mean when they say that is that they do not want others fitting them within the confines of some sort of metanarritive-esque definable category. To be placed in such a definable category is considered an enslavement to that definition and category; to be "labelled" is to be imprisoned within a metanarrative. For postmodern/emergents, it is an atrocity to be labelled, and a cardinal sin to label others.
This despisement of "labels" is ludicrous, however, because it is fundamentally flawed in its views of what a "label" is. The fundamental assumption wherein postmodern/emergent types are in error is the assumption that a "label" is an arbitrary assignment from outside your person, i.e., it is another person making you into the label, or requiring that you be the label. Common sense requires that such an assumption is ludicrous. When I "label" a painting Cubist or a philosophy Nihilistic, I am not making those things anything; I am merely responding to what I actually see. I may be well-informed yet still wrong in my response, but it is still a response, i.e., a passive and not active action. When I (or anyone else) "labels" anything or anyone, that is not an act of creation, but an act of identification; I am attempting (like any rational human being) to understand what I am engaging. This should be embarrassingly obvious: I do not make a person a Christian/Republic/Liberal/Atheist/Realist/Apathetic/etc. by calling them that any more than me calling them a "dog"will give them a furry tail and wet nose.
This erroneous assumption that flaws postmodern/emergent despisement of "labels" is the result of a misunderstanding about beliefs. It is not people that make you this or that; it is your beliefs that make you this or that. Like it or not, your beliefs make you something. Even if you believed that there are no beliefs (a true contradiciton), that still makes you something; and that something is a real something. Even if there is not a label discovered are stated yet that properly defines the real thing that you are, that real thing is still there; and when people engage it, when they engage you, they will seek to understand (and therefore "label") you. "Labels" are not arbitrary assignments, but response to and expressions of what is really there, a response to and expression of you. "Labels" are not tyrants; they are revelations. Without them, you could never begin to identify who you are, and concretely identifying who you are (in any way) is vital to your humanity.
I am a Christian Protestant Baptist, Federalist Republic Conservative, Logocentric Trinitarian, Fantasy Realist, already-but-not-yet, resurrected-fallen lover of pie. These are not arbitrary assignments given to me by others. I was not made into these by the tyranny of metanarratives; I assigned them to myself after I discovered (through much prayer and critical thinking) that I really am those things. They are my "labels," and I dare not part with them! They help me state concretely and definitely (if not still incompletely) who I am, and such knowledge serves as a reference point to help me navigate myself through the world.
"Labels" are a matter of identity, not slavery. The only true slavery is confusion and doubt; the only true freedom is stability and certainty. Knowledge--concrete, certain, actual knowledge--is indeed power. If you do not "know," then you are helpless, lost in a fog. Should not that be obvious, though? Practical experience reveals that a man is at his most helpless when he has "no idea" of what to do, where to go, or what is going on. It is only when he knows some things that he has the power to act.
That is not nonsense; it is a bare truth about existence. All doing is dependent upon being. Who you are defines what you will do; action requires an I.D. If you do not know who you are, then what can you do? In truth, nothing. You cannot vote (for you do not know what issues you stand for), you cannot learn (for you do not know what type of learner you are, or what things you want to learn), you cannot dream (for you do not know what you desire), you cannot love (for you do not know what kind of love you seek), you cannot laugh (for you do not know what you find funny), you cannot cry (for you do not know what hurts you), you cannot worship (for you do not know what beauty is), you cannot fight (for you do not know what is worth fighting for), you cannot help (for you do not know what is wrong), you cannot hurt (for you do not know what is wrong with you), you cannot create (for you do not know what your tools are, or what is worth creating), you cannot destroy (for, again, you do not know what your tools are, or what is worth destroying), you cannot stand (for you do not know what you should stand for), you cannot sit out (for you do not know what you should ignore), etc., etc. In every case, you are in the ninth circle of Hell, frozen solid, truly a slave and in prison.
If, however, you know who you are; if you have found your "labels," then you have the power to do. You can vote and everything else because you know (in some way) who you are dealing with when you deal with yourself. Identification is not a slavery, nor is it arbitrary assignments. Definable categories are not your enemy; they are navigation points by which you can navigate yourself through yourself. If you are (in any way) certain of your self, then you have found a true freedom.