Test Time!!!

Even though I give students a review sheet - which is basically a preview of their test - and answer every question that they have by email, there will still me much weeping and gnashing of teeth come test time. Come on!! I gave you guys the questions and the answers, am I even teaching anything? Probably not, but I probably suck as a teacher too, since I am new at this so, the review and email answers are to compensate for my suck factor as a teacher. Oh well... if you want an "A" in professor J's class, you just have to study, baby. We'll see how the second test goes tonight at Tarleton State University... that makes me sound big time huh.

That time of the semester...

Well, at Weatherford College (counting this week as over) there are only 4 more weeks of school. Both Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Tarleton State University have 5 more weeks. So this means summer time which means I get to read what I want to read. So what will I read? I can best answer this by askeing, "What is the main thing that I have learned this last month or two months?" Well, that I don't know any where near as much as I think I do. Students at SWBTS are kinda in a bubble, lots of students come here without a clue and leave without a clue because classes are easy. I appear somewhat intelligent when I compare myself to them. However, if there is anything that I have learned by applying to different PhD programs it is that I don't know that much. Students that did not have master's degrees got accepted whereas I was working on a PhD and could not get in. I have decided that academics is similar to what Thomas Edison once said about invention... 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. I think academics is similar... I need to work harder. The Christian world in academics often pat themselves on the back for clever arguments that often get destroyed by secular academics. I need to be able to compete with the secular academics, therefore I must work harder. So it is back to the drawing board, I will read some surveys of epistemology, and metaphysics and work on some logic. I will also read through Alvin Plantinga's trilogy in Christian epistemology, the "Warrant" series... wish me luck on reading all the books this summer, or should I say "pray for me." But God has given me the passion and desire to study philosophy of religion, I now need to use the cognitive faculties that God has given to me.

Only one God's eye view

I was reading - and still am reading - Gilbert C. Meilaender's book, The Theory and Practice of Virtue. In it he refers to Plato's allegory of the cave, and claims that what Plato is describing is a cave that we have created for ourselves and placed ourselves in. We have to find a way to enlighten ourselves and leave the cave, then come back and tell others that are still in the cave about the world outside. Those in the cave lack knowledge, and only through leaving the cave can one "see the light." Meileander goes on to compare Richard Rorty with Plato. Rorty makes statements about the truth such as, "the truth is what our peers allow us to get away with." So for Rorty the truth and knowledge is a construct of our society. Meilaender asserts that Plato is in this same position. Now, for Meilaender, the only way we can leave the cave is with the aid of God's grace. This begs the question, is the Christian (or theistic) worldview the only worldview in which an objective truth, apart from society can exist? This appears to be what Meilaender is claiming. At face value, I think that I agree with Meilaender.

Now, back to hermeneutics.... (woo-hoo)

In the book, How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth, by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, make a modernistic claim, "the only proper control for hermeneutics is to be found in the original intent of the bilbical text" (p. 25). Now, you may be saying to yourself, "yes," Fee and Stuart have it right, the Bible ought to be understood in its original context. However, this is the problem with modern biblical hermeneutics (modern biblical hermeneutics are not the same as contemporary biblical hermeneutics) the modern methodology of biblical interpretation, only accounts for the human author, e.g. Paul, Peter, Moses, ... etc. So who is the other author? The Holy Spirit. Remember if God is omniscient - or all-knowing - then God sees all of time. So the Holy Spirit can understand a future context and direct the human author to write the biblical text in such a manner that the text can speak to a specific situation during July 10, 2004. Now the human author might only understand the present situation in which the Holy Spirit has inspired him to write about, e.g. 1 Corinthians, Paul would understand the context and meaning of 1 Corinthians as it pertains to the church in Corinth. Yet, the Holy Spirit would understand the fuller context of the revelation involved in 1 Corinthians. The other problem is that we cannot know what the intent of the human author is, to know someone's intent, we need to know what he is thinking, know what's inside his mind. Why do Fee & Stuart claim that the text cannot mean anything other than what it meant in its original context? Because, they hold to a modern hermeneutic and are seeking certainty. I would say that they are looking for Cartesian certainty, but I do not know if they have actually ever read Rene Descartes - but I would assume that they have.

But, scholars such as Fee and Stuart - no doubt Fee and Stuart are evangelical Christians who have done much service, especially through their scholarship, for the kingdom of God - also believe that the original manuscripts of Scripture, or the original autographs, are the true Word of God. Well, most textual critics - Gordon Fee is one of these textual critics - believe that the biblical translations that we use now contain about 97% of the original autographs... wow that's great!! Oh, wait a minute, what 3% of the scriptures do I read that is not the Word of God? Well, we don't know for sure because we do not have the original autographs. (Again, I think this view of needing to have the original autographs is related to the search for certainty.) If God is involved in the transmission process - transmission process would include, translations, critical editions, and assembling the Scripture - then we need not be concerned with how much of the original autographs that we do or do not have, because God has inspired the transmission process.

Now, how are the two related. Obviously, one deals with the authorship of Scripture and the other is concerned with the preservation of Scripture. All too often we rely upon ourselves and our ability to understand God. We do not realize what God is doing or what God is trying to tell us. All we know is that God is in control. I have raised some major points and will try to answer some of them in later blog entries. I haven't answered any questions but only raised questions this time.

philosophy of ....

So a question was posed to me who is my special friend? Well, actually I mis-spoke. I meant to say "special-lady." See I combined, special lady with ladyfriend, getting special friend. Now, you may be asking, what is the difference? According to the Dude (from The Big Lebowski) a ladyfriend is someone whom he is helping conceive. So I am certainly not helping anyone conceive right now, so I do not have a ladyfriend, but I do have someone that I would classify as a special lady. Which brings me to the next question. What is the difference between a girlfriend and a special-lady? I am not sure if I know, but this blog entry will be discussing the philosophy of girlfriends. I assume that a special lady is someone who one would date and be somewhat seriously dating. How is this different from a girlfriend. I assume that when one has a girlfriend that one usually lives in the same city or even area, if not state, as one's girl friend. My special lady does not live in TX but lives in Illinois. Technically we have only gone on at the most 5 dates, so do you need to go on more dates with someone for them to be your girlfriend/boyfriend? And, I won't be able to go on another date with her until May 25... so I will have known her for almost a year by then and only gone out on 5 dates. But are the terms "special-lady" and "girlfriend" substitutable? For instance, if X has a special-lady, then does X have a girlfriend, OR, if X has a girlfriend, does X have a special-lady? If one is a special lady then is one in the class of girlfriend? I really don't know, I just assume that for one to have a girlfriend one must live in the same general location... but I have been wrong before...

Pastoral Problem, blah, blah, blah (Tres)

Well, now I have run off all my readers, but hey, I'm entertaining myself... I digress. I think the biggest problem that people face in decision making is blame. Whenever something bad happens people have a natural tendency to want to blame someone. God is most often the target of this blame. Now, as a close friend told me the Psalms teach us that it's ok to be mad at God. Fair enough. However, when we are mad at God we do not have a reason to be. God has given us more than we will ever realize and God has given us more than we deserve. But humans are greedy - we always want more and more. So when we make bad choices that causally produce negative consequences we don't want to blame ourselves, because God should have rescued us from ourselves. This is often why people just say that God will do X or God will do Y. That takes the pressure off of the individual having to choose how to accomplish X or Y. Also if the individual fails to accomplish X or Y, the individual has a scapegoat to blame for her failure, God. Now I probably sound a little cynical on this topic, if I am, "sorry." I believe that God is in control but also lets us make decisions concerning our lives. When we make poor choices, it's not God's fault that we were not wise, it's our own fault.

Pastoral Problem (Part Deux)

Well, I still have more to say about the pastoral problem of Divine Foreknowledge and human freewill. Now, when a woman goes through a painful divorce she wonders why God (given she believes that He is the greatest posssible being) would allow her to make such a mistake. The openness answer to this is that given God's knowledge before she was married, that she made the right decision. If you believe that God exists outside of time, such as myself, you believe that God knew the marriage would not work. So why did God allow this to happen? (This problem is really another facet to the problem of evil - a lot of ins and outs, a lot of strands in the ol' duder's head.) Anyway, I digress, We need to have freewill. Evangelicals often believe that they have freewill to choose salvation but forget that they have freewill when choosing a mate. Does God have plan for everyone? Yes. Does everyone follow God's plan? No. The best way to think of this is that God desires for everyone to be saved, we could rephrase this as God's plan for everyone is that they become saved, unless one is a universalist, one does not actually believe that this will happen. For a good explanation and argument for universalism see here. It seems that we often have a wish fulfillment that when we come to an area where we face uncertainty that God will work it out for us without us having any responsibility or work to do. Look, God will take care of us, but we still have responsibility for our actions. If not then freewill doesn't mean a thing - it's just lip service. I can make bad decisions on where I will go to school, I can make bad decisions on whether I will write a good paper. What if I decide not to study for a test? Obviously we say that all things work for the good of God and I believe that, but there is still an element of human responsibility. Now the question to ask is how do all things work towards the good of God, e.g. the holocaust, or the crusades? I will answer this question soon...

The "Pastoral" Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freewill

As a Christian philosopher I acknowledge God's sovereignty over His creation. I acknowledge that God is the greatest possible being: God is omniscienct, God is omnipotent, and God is omnibenevolent. No being is greater than God. An implication of God's omnibenevolence is that God is perfectly good; God cannot sin. As Anselm described it, sin is a deficiency, if a being sins it is because that being lacks the power to do good - God does not lack the power to do good. James 1:13 says, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone." So God cannot do evil according to biblical revelation.
Now, God being omniscient means that God knows everything that is possible for God to know. Since I am not an open theist I believe that everything that is possible for God to know includes the future. So God knows that the future decisions that I will face and how I will decide. Though God might have a plan for me, I am not a fatalistic determinist, I can make choices on my own that are wrong. An example of this might be a divorce, divorce is never the will of God but God allows divorce for people who have made bad decisions.
God's omnipotence implies that God is all-powerful. God's plans cannot be foiled. (The question of whether God can create a rock so big that He cannot lift it is an incoherent question.)
So, God knows what will happen to me, God can control what will happen to me, and God loves me more than I love myself. Why don't I trust God? I don't know. I realize that it is often the case that we do not realize how God is working in our lives during the current situation and thus do not realize what the good is that He is doing in our lives... Managers of a baseball club are second guessed after they lose a game due to a questionable decision that they made. We do not have the ability to question God after He makes what appears to be a decision concerning our lives. I think my problem might be that I don't realize what God is doing and that is what frustrates me the most. God knows what decisions I will make and whether they will be good or bad decisions, I guess my prayer is that God gives me the wisdom to make good decisions and puts me in the proper place so that I might best suceed. --Amen

More Nietzsche

Here is another quote from Nietzsche in The Gay Science: "What decides against Christianity now is our taste, not our reasons."

People often give apologetic arguments for the existence of God, but the truth is what Nietzsche claims here, people believe in God when it makes them feel good. One of the most frustrating things for me in ministry was seeing people show up in church when things were bad - that was when they needed God to help them. Whenever people needed something from God, they would be in church or ask the other church members to pray for them. When things were good people would avoid church. Sometimes it was vice versa, but people had emotional reasons for worshipping God, it was never a thoughful decision for a lot of church-goers. I think Nietzsche has it right, in the contemporary church in the U.S. people do or don't go to church based upon emotions, not reason. Is this bad? Not necessarily. However, if everything is an emotional decision sooner or later your emotions will lead you astray. I know that when I am tired everything seems wrong, if I relied upon my emotions when I was tired I would make a lot of foolish decisions.

If we have the truth...

You know Ang raised an interesting point while we were working out a couple of weeks ago. If we have the truth - "we" means Christians - then why do we try to "trick" up our arguments for the truth? Why do churches utilize advertising campaigns for their church that would get a regular corporation in trouble for false advertising? You know in a way, this could be an argument against Christianity, that we always give "half-truths" to make our point for Christianity. If the Christian worldview is true, then we do not need to be apologetic about it, we need to proclaim it boldly. But, have Christians become too lazy that they do not know what the truth is anymore? Or are they too lazy to give a good argument and fall back on sophistry to win an argument? Obviously this is something that is important to me. People will always accuse Christians of lying, immorality, and bringing about evil, e.g. the crusades. This doesn't mean that we need to the job easier for those who are opposed to Christianity by using half-truths in Christian arguments.

Spring Break???

Well, just got back from OK. Visited the OU campus and met with Dr. Zagzebski. I think some of the questions that I asked her, frustrated her to a degree. However, I found out that she would supervise my dissertation if I asked her to. That's the most important thing, because she is a significant scholar in philosophy of religion.

A good verse

I have been struggling with some of the issues surrounding this verse, and yesterday I heard it referenced to in church. Sometimes God gives you a verse which speaks to the situation that you [I] are in. That's how I feel about this verse, Romans 8:18.

"For I consider te sufferings of this present time are not worth to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

I need to remember that whatever we suffer on this earth, will not compare to what God will accomplish through us.

it's ok for now...

Well, my cpu on my desktop finally died. Or as the dude would say, "Well they finally did it... they finally killed my car." Just thought that I would work in a quote from the "Big Lebowski" for all my fans. So I went out today and bought an ethernet card to hook it up to my laptop. So, now I am on my laptop :) ... and glad to be online.

More updates later on today... for now it is time to go to the gym and do some bench press... possibly cardio too, but we'll see about that...

if it ain't broke, don't fix it

I think that it may be a The Big Lebowski kind of night. Don't worry Jessica, I will watch The Life of David Gale sometime over my spring break...

well, kinda sad, kinda happy... just a weird feeling

Ok, why am I kinda happy? Because it's championship week. This is the week when all of the conferences in division 1 have their conference tournaments for basketball - no greater time of year for college sports than now. The NCAA tournament will start on Thursday and that's a great day thing also... but Michigan State just lost to Wisconsin...

Ok, why am I kinda sad? Well a friend just left, and I had a really good time with my friend.

So in honor of my mood today I will post a quote from Nietzsche. For all of my readers (all 1 of them) read this quote in light of cultural Christianity. This comes from The Gay Science or one could translate "Gay" to "Joyful."

Sec. 108 New battles - After Buddha was dead, they still showed his shadow in a cave for centuries - a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way people are, there may still for millennia be caves in which they show his shadow. - And we - we must still defeat his shadow as well!

as promised... more on hermeneutics (woo-hoo!!)

I mentioned in a previous post about hermeneutics (hermeneutics means interpretation, in this case it's the interpretation of a text) that there can be two correct interpretations of Scripture. A good example of this is OT prophecies that are also prophecies of Jesus. One could reference Is. 7:14 in this case. Originally the child, Immanuel, was prophesied to help Ahaz, but its fullest meaning was that the child, Immanuel, would be Jesus Christ. So, scholars often comment upon how the NT takes the OT out of context, and that the NT "appropriates" the OT for its own purpose. I would suggest that if we believe that the human authors of Scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit, i.e. God, then the human authors might be writing the biblical text for their contemporary situation. However, the Holy Spirit sees all of time - or if you believe in the "open" view of God then God knows all the probabilities of possible outcomes, which makes God the great oddsmaker - so the Holy Spirit can see all of time and use a text to speak to a contemporary situation, which the author is involved in, and a situation 1000 years later after the text was written. Moreover, we need to remember that there are two authors of Scripture, the first and most important author is GOD, the second and less significant author is the human author. Now how do we prevent people from interpreting Scripture in any manner that they desire? I'm glad you asked :) First and most important rule is, Scripture interprets Scripture. If a person derives an interpretation of Scripture from a passage in Revelation and this interpretation is inconsistent with a passage of Scripture in Psalms, then that person's interpretation is incorrect. Secondly, (these priciples are from St. Augustines De Doctrina Christina also referred to as On Christian Teaching or On Christian Doctrine) one cannot interpret Scripture contrary to the love of God or love of humans for God's sake. In other words, if a person interprets the Bible in such a way that one believes this passage of Scripture teaches us to hate other humans, then that interpretation is incorrect. So all interpretations must agree with the idea that we ought to love God, and love humans for God's sake. Third and last (but this will be the subject of another post because this will also be confusing) we cannot interpret a passage of the Bible in which the interpretation would be contrary to any of the creeds. Now I realize that there are many creeds out there and people will object to my position and label it "papist" but I am going to stick to my guns. I only hold to the four creeds in which the universal catholic (not "Roman Catholic") church agreed to. As soon as the Latin/Greek (or east/west) church split occurred, all further creeds became null. Why's this? Because true biblical interpretation occurs within the community of believers. We no longer have a true community of believers that are united among the universal church, so that any creeds (which I really believe are hermeneutical guides) that are produced by the churches are not as significant as the creeds which were produced when the church was united.

I will probably need to explain more about my position on the creeds later, because right now, all of my readers are thinking that i am a papist. Well I will discuss more on my creedal position, later...

You decide!!

So, (I have a friend who starts off some of his thoughts with the use of "so," so I decided to start off in a similar fashion in honor of this friend) I received my rejection letter from the University of Iowa. --BTW rejection SUCKS -- So, as I was saying I received my rejection letter from Iowa. Now, most normal people would throw out a rejection letter, but since I am Charlie Brown and I always do everything wrong, I decided to contemplate what I ought to do with my rejection letter. Therefore, I am going to put my fate into the hands of my loyal (all two of them) readers. Let me know what I ought to do with my letter of rejection. Should I: (A) Throw it out, (B) Put it in a frame to remind me of my failure, or (C) Put it on the wall near my door in my apartment when I am at University of Oklahoma, to remind me that OU did want me and Iowa didn't. If it were up to me (and it probably will be since no one reads this blog) I will put it up by the door of my apartment in Norman so everyday I will realize that I have to work hard to improve and that I have something to prove - I'm not smart enough to get by on talent alone. Thus, I would use the reminder of my rejection as a form of motivation for working hard EVERY DAY. Well, hope I didn't waste everyone's time (all two of you) with this post.

gentle musings on....

hermeneutics. I was thinking today about a comment my roommate made with regards to Scripture. I think a lot of Christians often forget that God is the primary author of Scripture. What does this mean? It means that there can be more than one correct interpretation of a biblical passage. This does not mean that one can use a 'Nietzschean' will-to-power over the text. It is somewhat of a fine line in this regard. ...More on this later...

"[To] serve God properly we must learn to give up our own wills, thoughts, and desires. Why? Because otherwise we will be wise in our own conceits and will imagine that we can serve God with this or that, and thus spoil everything."

You are John Calvin! You're the most intellectual and thoroughly intense theologian on the block. You know what you're talking about and you recommend people to ignore you at their own risk. Yeah, baby, you know your stuff. You speak in riddles and confuse people for fun. Still, this hurts your social skills a lot... and you end up always appearing arrogant and rude.

What theologian are you?

A creation of Henderson

Ought Implies Can

In philosophy the assertion "ought implies can," refers to ethical action. If one ought to do x, then one can do x. How does this pertain to Christian ethics, given the fall, all humans - according to traditional Christian doctrine - cannot refrain from sinning. Moreover, the doctrine of original sin states that humans are born with a sinful nature. If this is true, why then are humans punished for the way that they are created? This is where corporate personality comes into play, according to coroporate personality, all humans were 'in' Adam when he sinned in the Garden of Eden. In other words, all humans consciously made the decision to sin in the garden. Just as all humans who are 'in' Christ are redeemed for something that they have not done - but have done so coroporately because Jesus is the second Adam - humans are punished for a corporately committed sin. So humans did have a choice to sin - but the decision was corporately made. Now that the will has ben bent by sin, 'ought implies can' is not as significant to Christians as it was before the fall. Now, from a Christian perspective good can only be accomplished through the aid of God's grace.

i don't know, what should i have done???

Now that I am looking forward to beginning studies at OU in the fall, I have one final question that I need to answer. After my first year at OU will I be able to get some kind of financial aid? This is the critical question for my philosophy career... I can afford one year w/o working, but not much more than that. Which begs the question, I am in a PhD program in philosophy at a SBC seminary. What does that say about the education of a seminary when I am not competitive w/ undergrad students applying to PhD programs. It should be simple for me, move from one PhD program to another... but it wasn't. So now the question I am asking myself is do I start all over again if I will not have a shot at getting a TA position at OU? In other words, should I apply to an MA program and work on getting an MA for the next two years? This would put me at 29 years of age by the time I begin my MA... b/c in all likelihood, it's too late to apply to any MA programs for the next year. ....Makes me wonder if I made a mistake starting a PhD at the school I am currently at in the first place.........

Well... things aren't as bad as I had originally thought...

Thanks to a friend who I spoke w/ today, this friend shall remain nameless, but he likes anime, sushi, philosophy, and occasionaly lifts weights w/ me, I realize that I am excited to be going to OU in the fall. My friend reminded me that OU is better in phil. of religion than Iowa is. So thanks, I feel better today :)

To quote my friend from England, Simon Kelly, "I am absolutely gutted."

Application process... I applied to several other PhD programs b/c the situation at SWBTS was not ideal to be in right now. FSU did not receive a letter of recommendation from a prof and they did not receive a GRE report. The school I really wanted to get into (Iowa) did not accept me. I was accepted into University of Oklahoma, but w/o any financial aid. The whole complete process just sucks, waiting to hear back from schools is extremely tedious and nerve-wracking, I have actually never applied to a school where the decision was in doubt. I thought that I did the best I could when I applied to Iowa and they received my entire application packet, but I guess sometimes your best isn't good enough. The worst part about it all is that Iowa is not even in the top 50 ranked philosophy schools. OU is a solid philosophy program but they aren't in the top 50 either. It just makes me wonder if I am doing the right thing or not. How do you know when God wants you to do something else? Is God trying to tell me that I am called to vocational ministry? Am I running from my 'true' call? Most people say that God gives you a feeling of peace, but that is so subjective... I am going to vist w/ a prof from OU, before making any decisions about next year. Rejection always sucks..........

Sider, and the problem of evil....

I think that Sider's article is a variation of the problem of pluralism. Take the example of one who believes that Christ is the way to heaven, but equally believes that one who is a good hindu also gets to heaven. Does that person make it to heaven? If not, what if a different person believes Christ is the way to heaven, but respects hindus for doing their own thing, and also believes that some hindus will make it to heaven. I guess what I am trying to get at is where is the cut-off. I believe that God is fully justified in placing the cut-off where ever He desires to, but I can see how non-believers would have a problem with this belief. I think Sider has hit upon something, and obviously, if one is a universalist, this problem does not exist. I do think that this is a relevant problem for evangelism and apologetics. Obviously John's Gospel tells us that no one goes to the Father but through Jesus, so revelation does tell us that only Christ can reconcile us to the Father. So Jesus is the only way to heaven, but how much can one believe in (or respect) the truth of other religions and still get to heaven?