CADRE Comments

Well, it's that time of year again to look at why Christian apologists spend so much of our time and energy meticulously arguing dozens and dozens (and hundreds of dozens!) of little points in favor of believing that something happened in history and what it means in principle for people. That may not sound like evangelism, especially to professional and gifted evangelists, but sceptics sure realize (and sometimes suspiciously resent, perhaps reasonably so) the evangelical character of such activity -- because they're sensitive (for better or for worse) about where all those big and little pieces are ultimately pointing. Where those pieces are pointing is an idea that, like any good idea, can still be abused in various ways to hurt people and to promote non-fair-togetherness (or "injustice" or "unrighteousness" as the term in Biblical Greek is usually translated) between people. It might be abused so that people get the idea that mutual cooperation bet...

Sometimes I'm asked to try to explain the Trinity simply -- sometimes for the humor of watching me try it! {wry g} And sometimes for the perceived apologetic value in my acknowledgment that the doctrinal set of trinitarian theism isn't simple, as if simplicity of a doctrinal set was itself evidence of truth (tell that to an astrophysicist of any flavor), or as if the complexity in itself should be regarded as evidence of unnecessary (and thus false) over-complication. There are only distant analogies to the Trinity in Nature, and that doesn't help, although that ought to be expected since we're supposed to be talking about the one and only self-existent ground of all reality. The Latin phrase sui generis is sometimes used here; that just means it's one of a kind and so every analogy to it for illustration will bring built-in differences from it. But one of my nieces (not yet ten years old) started catechism training this year, with some portions of doctrine (re...

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the great "I Have A Dream" Speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a great moment -- one that rightly ought to be honored.  However, we must remember that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's, thoughts were not borne in the atheistic or secular vacuum that today's media would lead you to believe. Rather, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Christian. He was a Reverend; a preacher of God's holy Word. And his beliefs grew out of that great Biblical foundation of thought that has its base in the Bible.  Of course, with today's rise of the gay rights movement, some think that gay marriage is an extension of the things taught by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. The think that King's ideas about "justice" require that marriage rights be extended to gays and lesbians (and bisexual, and transgender, etc., etc.) And, since King advocated so passionately for equality, one might initially be inclined to think th...

Because some guy with a highly over-convenient interpretive scheme thinks the Rapture will occur in the next 24 hours. Surely, none of us will be left behind, right...? {wry g} All kidding aside: if we are not looking for the fulfillment of justice in the world, especially against ourselves where we deserve it, then we're doing something wrong. We're rejecting justice at all, or we're putting our own selves up as being the final standard of justice, in mere competition with other persons. So, whether we're Christian or not, whether we believe Harold Camping's prediction or not (and obviously I don't), let us take this opportunity as a reminder to be penitent of our sins, whether those we have already renounced and left behind, or those we are still being freed from, and cry for justice--to the farthest extents we can see and beyond! Because, after all, whether or not the world begins to end tomorrow, I can predict with 100% certainty that, barring an outright m...

[Note: The contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 54, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes Chapter 55.] I have no clear idea of how this Child would think, as He grows into manhood. God will have poured Himself out, continuing to enact His own specific part in the story of humanity. We might say the finger of God will be gently touching the earth; a mere hum of His voice; a finite trickle out of the river of His eternity. I can only use metaphors, and I am well aware of the problems involved in imagining this accurately--which, I am also well aware, is likely to prove a stumbling block for an honest sceptic. But I appeal to the reasonableness of what I have said before. I am quite sure God exists, and has particular characteristics including a particular personal character. I am quite sure of my own sin and corrupted character. And I am reasonably sure of how this all fits together. Consequently, I am quite sure that sooner or later, God ...

[Note: The contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 50, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes Chapter 51.] If God is going to maintain all the various balances in His creation, while still working to His utmost to help effect our salvation from our own sins and the sins of our predecessors, then He will have to go about it within our history--not merely within the stories we tell ourselves (although He will do some work along those lines, too), but within the real natural reality we inhabit as synthetic creatures. This means He will act within a historical context, and it will be a context of His choosing: designed and guided, even 'tweaked' by Him to fit His plans; but also incorporating the choices of the people, the families, the nations, who will be a part of this particular story of history. But those people will not be sock-puppets. They will be real people; they will be fallible, even though God works with them to the best of ...

The contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, concluding Chapter 46, can be found here. This entry constitutes Chapter 47, and ends Section Four. This chapter mainly reiterates and spells out in some more detail how I arrived metaphysically at the conclusion that rebel supernatural entities exist, but it also arrives at the conclusion that these devils need the same help any of us sinners do: to be saved from their sins. This is a very controversial position; and I can't quite figure out where plausibly to split the chapter into two entries, either. So, to avoid posting an extra-long chapter on a controversial topic among Nicene trinitarians, seeing as this journal is dedicated to ecumenical Nicene apologetics (what trinitarian affirmers of the Nicene Creed generally agree on instead of what we disagree about), I have posted the whole chapter, about 16 pages, to a thread at the Evangelical Universalist forum instead (where I have been posting these Sword...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, starting Chapter 46, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes Chapter 46, "The Children of the First Sinners".] [I ended the previous entry asking, "Why is it that other people suffer thanks to my sin? Why does God not negate the harmful, baneful results of my own actions, sparing those who find themselves standing in the paths of effect?"] The first answer I reach is: I do not know that God does let every possible baneful consequence from my actions affect other people. On the contrary: I know I find myself thanking Him, that by providential circumstance other people have been spared from suffering which might have followed from some sin of mine. This does not, by itself, provide a solution to my question, for if even one minor suffering of a victim resulted from a whole history of (otherwise silent) human sinning, then the question of why God would allow such an effect would rem...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, concluding Chapter 45, can be found here. ] [This entry starts Chapter 46, "The Children of the First Sinners".] I have argued that recorded history--even the history recorded by people who do not follow my own tradition--indicates that the tendency to act intransigently, in willful rebellion against what we perceive to be true, has been a perennial characteristic of our species. Because God would not have created us automatically in rebellion against Him (or against as much of Him as we could perceive), then our progenitors must have fallen into this state; and I think I can argue that the number of these progenitors must have been small, and the percentage of 'fallens' within that number must have been large: for the whole human race, as it stands now and as it has stood throughout history, exhibits the characteristics of sinful rebellion. [Footnote: I am not arguing this from the world...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, continuing Chapter 45, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes Chapter 45, "A History of the Fall".] The first sinners might want to put their corrupted synthetic shape back to its uncorrupted state, and that would be a good thing, as far as it goes. Indeed, love and justice on God's part would suggest that He will institute ways for them to know they have made a serious mistake that should be fixed. It might be purely self-serving for Adam and Eve to want this; but the problem to be fixed is the result of their intentions to be self-serving. This cannot be fixed by being merely self-serving again. To truly want to fix it, must involve at least a partial negation of that intention. It is the first step, or one of the first, on the road of repentance. But can they do it? Basically the question is: once they have hampered their connection to the source of their knowledge and power, can th...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, concluding Chapter 38, can be found here. ] [This entry starts Chapter 39, "The Role of the Third Person of God".] In the previous chapter, I examined a potentially damaging problem stemming from the requirements of some earlier inferences I had made. This problem, although subtle, was severe enough that it might have unraveled quite a bit of my previous argument. However, upon close examination of the problem, I discovered that after removing certain inconsistencies from the option list, I was rewarded, not with a conclusion that much of my previous argument would need to be trash-canned (or at best redrafted), but that there must exist a 3rd Person to the self-existent Unity of God. I had, in short, deduced the existence of what Christians call "The Holy Spirit" or “The Holy Ghost”. So, what does this "3rd Person of God" do in relation to us? The answer to that question depe...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 37, can be found here. ] [This entry begins Chapter 38, "Inferring the Third Person of God".] If we cannot perceive something of the principles of God's interPersonal love (the love between Father and Son that grounds all reality), then we will be working at dangerous inefficiency against reality. I think it would be inconsistent with God's love and justice for Him to prevent us from perceiving this (although we might ourselves choose to turn away from it--a topic I will be discussing later). It is not a mere fact about God that we need here, but a real relationship to Him, as person (you and I, individually and corporately) to Person (God--Who Himself is a substantial interPersonal unity). Unfortunately, an argument I made some time ago may be returning here to nix me. I insisted, back when I was discussing your and my relationship to God and Nature, that you and I needed a commo...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, concluding Chapter 36, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes Chapter 37.] Even though I still ended with a deadlock on a proposal of merely secular interpersonal ethics, I will reiterate here that I believe it is important to recognize, respect and appreciate the special strength of that theory. Despite its weaknesses, I consider this to be the best secular ethical theory on the market today; and I expect this, in one or another variation, to be the best that secular ethicists can ever really do. ‘And we don’t need God for it!’ the sceptic will emphasize. Not on the face of it, no; but then again, as I noted in my previous chapter, there are aspects of the theory which, when followed out, might point toward our accepting the existence of God after all! Which, in essence, is what I had done already, in the chapters before I began this section on ethics. So far, I have presented this section of chapt...