Deeper Waters

I was in church Sunday during what we call our educational hour. Usually, the person who spoke speaks again and the audience gets to ask questions. At one point, the speaker was speaking on something, though what it was was not the focus of the blog tonight. I kept noticing he used two words and he used them as if they had different meanings. So I raised my hand.

I told him that I was hearing these two words to which he agreed. I then told him that he was using them as if they were different. He agreed to that also. I then asked if he could explain the distinction between the two for me. Now I know there’s no context for my readers in what words were used and how they were used, but I want to recommend this for people. When you listen to someone or read something someone has written, watch their words very closely.

This is especially important in an age of the cults. When the Mormons come to you and say they believe in the deity of Christ, it does not mean what you think it means. Even JWs will tell you they believe in it, but they do not mean what you think it means either. JWs would say Jesus is a god so he is deity and Mormons have a Christ who is the brother of Satan. Neither of these are orthodox.

The homosexual left is out in full force often today and we have people saying gay instead of saying homosexual. Friends. Don’t say gay or queer or any other term. Say homosexual. This is an effort of rephrasing things to make them more friendly to the public. What a shock that the next word to be redefined on their list is marriage.

This is also in the abortion debate. What does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to be a person? What does it mean to be a life? What does it mean to be innocent? All of these terms have to be watched closely. The other side will jump at any slip that they can find in you.

The same goes with creation/evolution. What exactly do we mean by each of these words? What does it mean to say something is scientific? What is science? What is truth? People must be asked what they mean. Don’t accept a dictionary definition either. We often say words without having the dictionary definition in mind. Ask them to say exactly what they mean by the word.

This is going to be quite prevalent in our postmodern generation with the emerging church coming. What does the word “Truth” mean? Is X true for everyone, or is it true for you but not for me? What about tolerance? Does tolerance mean that I welcome the practicing homosexual into our midst? Does it mean I cannot disagree?

Friends. Our words are essential. We have to watch them closely. When you hear someone speak and they want to talk about something, ask yourself what they mean by that word. Have they said what it is yet? Be willing to ask questions and be willing to insist on distinctions. Make your own language clear as well. The gospel needs to be said with clarity after all.

A friend of mine took a risk today. Unfortunately, he did not win out on the risk. However, I am quite pleased with him. My friend is not normally one to act in such a way, but with encouragement, he got up the guts to go ahead and do it. Sure, he lost what he was going after, but he was willing to try.

My friend realized something and it’s something I need to realize more often also. Life is an adventure. There are rarely times where we know what will happen with certainty. We have to go out and take a chance. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, is certainly a true maxim to keep in mind.

Consider any adventure story? Does the hero know he will leave the fight alive? Not usually, unless he’s really skilled and fighting a weak opponent. Do not the heroes often take the most desperate drives and rush into the most dangerous odds in an attempt to get at that one sliver of hope? Yep.

Friends. Life is not to be played safe. Where would we be today if the church played it safe? In fact, maybe the reason we are in this situation in America is that the American church plays it safe. The disciples knew nothing about playing it safe. Go read Hebrews 11 and get to the end and read about what they were willing to go through.

We need leaders today. We need leaders that will stand up and face the world and say “Your system needs to change!” We need people who will stand up in the public square when Christ is maligned and say “That is my Lord you are speaking about!” We need to learn from the JWs and Mormons. They are highly evangelistic with a lie. We have the truth and don’t have half the evangelism they have.

My friend is a model for all of us now. Now are you going to speak up at times and get laughed at and shamed? Yes. Deal with it. Are you going to take chances at times and lose out? Yep. Deal with it. Are you going to enter into a debate and get stumped with a hard question and not know an answer? Deal with it and read up and learn an answer.

J.P. Moreland once said that when you start apologetics, what will happen is that as you start, you’ll go out from time to time and get your tail feathers blown out from under you. I am sure he speaks from experience. So do I. This happened to me numerous times when I started. Arguments that in the past made me cringe and be fearful today do not even make me blink.

Why? Because I kept taking risks. I’ve been in a number of debates now. I still get nervous before many of them, but each time, they get easier and easier. It’s a risk. I know I’m putting my reputation on the line and worse, the way some people might see Christianity. If I am seen as a champion of the faith and I fail, what might some people think about the faith?

Friends. We have to risk though. There’s no excuse to not do so. We are on an adventure and we need to live it like an adventure. We can cross the finish line in Heaven without taking a lot of risks I believe, but I think we will be at the loss for it. Why not try to cross that line as if we were truly racing for that crown Paul talks about in 1 Cor. 9? Would you not give it your all instead of just walking across? I think you would.

Friend. I’m proud of you. You took a risk. May we all learn from your example!

I had a pretty hectic evening I’d say. My workplace was rushed and I had somewhat of a headache, (still do actually) and my feet felt like they would fall off. I came home tonight though and started chatting with my roommate and before too long we’re off doing some internet activity on a forum together.

I think more and more about the joy of my friends. I look at where I am at in the world and in my life now and realize that while I did take the prerogative to do what I am doing, that I would not have done it and would not be able to keep doing it if it wasn’t for the support of my friends.

I am incredibly thankful for these people that God has allowed to put in my life. As my roommate and I laugh back and forth concerning an incident tonight, I think back to that one day he contacted me with a simple message. From there began a long friendship which has come to this point. If it wasn’t for the friendship of others though, I wouldn’t have met this friend I have today either.

These people are people we just tend to take for granted sometimes. I recall the definition of a friend as one who knows everything there is to know about you, but likes you anyway. I am a character with many strange idiosyncracies, yet my friends like me and support me anyway and it just blows me away.

I often hope I can do the same for them. When my friends are attacked, it is one thing that will thoroughly make me angry. They can go after me all they want to, but when someone goes after my friends, then that is an act of war. I fight on the side of my friends. They stand with me and I with them.

Each of us has been there. We’ve seen good times and we’ve seen bad times. My friends have seen me when I’ve been happy and they’ve seen me when I’ve been sad. They’ve seen me when I thought I could handle any opponent and they’ve seen me when I thought I couldn’t handle anyone.

If I need an ear to talk to, there are several people I know I can turn to. My cell phone is filled with contacts. I can pick it up and call them and if it is an emergency, I know that they would be there for me. There’s a great joy in going down that list and seeing friend after friend after friend.

I am not an emotional person, but as I write this, I do get emotional. It’s hard not to, and I think it’s a good thing that I do. When I’m depressed nowadays, I think about my friends and how much they mean to me. When I am scared about the future, which sometimes happens, I think about them and realize they will be there.

I even think about my old church. As I write this, someone from back there is in IM with me wanting to talk about how it is doing and they are finally teaching apologetics. That pleases me greatly. My church was generous enough that they took a love offering for me to go to Seminary which has paid for my first course. I’m a member of a church here now, but they still email me about things that are going on. I’m still treated like a member.

We near the holiday season now. I look forward to seeing my family, but I still must say “Thank God for Friends!”

The philosopher John Locke believed in the idea that all knowledge comes through sense-experience. Berkeley took this idea and raised some questions about matter. In the end, Berkeley did not believe the material world existed. The transition is an interesting one and can be read about in Gordon Clark’s book “Thales to Dewey.” By the way, both of these thinkers were Christians.

Yet it raises a question. Is anything objective? Do we discover the world or do we define the world? I find it amazing that when I look at an action such as the 9/11 attacks or school shootings in America and call them evil, I am told by moral relativists that that intuition that I have that tells me that something is evil is what is really wrong. Morality is not objective but relative. I would be more inclined to believe with Berkeley that the material world was relative before I’d believe morality is relative.

Yet solipsism has been an idea that many people have sought to avoid. (If you don’t know what it is, I recommend doing a google search for a philosophical article on the topic.) If solipsism is false though, then there is a reality outside of our minds. There really is a world that is there.

Kant could leave us in basic doubt if all we have is sense-knowledge. Kant argued that we can’t know the things in themselves. We can only know the impressions that we receive from them. Kant spoke much about the moral law though and definitely treated it as if it was a reality. He wasn’t a solipsist either. He believed in the material world. He said the two things that would always leave him in awe are the starry host above and the moral law within.

Yet this is a valid point that is raised and one that Dinesh D’Souza brings up in “What’s So Great About Christianity?” If the atheist wishes to rely on sense-experience, what tells him that it is reliable? If he wishes to use reason, what tells him that reason is reliable? Can he ever truly say he has knowledge?

While this applies to sense-experience, I think it applies to so much more as well. C.S. Lewis wrote in the Screwtape Letters of how the demons of Hell could not yet create one pleasure. Pleasure was purely the ground of the enemy, who would be God in this case as it’s one demon writing to another.

Consider this though as you look at the world. What happens if you hear a piece of music and think “My! That is beautiful!” Immediately to avoid a reality you must say, “Stop! Don’t think such a thing! There is no real beauty in the world! Nothing is objectively beautiful! It is only an illusion in your mind!”

If you give your children a hug when they come home from school and think that love has taken place, that voice must shout again. “Stop! Do not think such a thing! There is no you there! There is only a machine acting on chemical reactions! Don’t think that there is something objectively loving or something objectively lovable!”

If you donate money to a needy cause and think you have done a good thing, you must hear it again. “Stop! Do not think that is good! There is nothing that is truly good out there! It is only in your mind that you think it is good! Do not say it is good if it is not really good!”

Then, if you want to complain about God allowing suffering in the world, you can’t even do that before that voice repeats. “Stop! There is nothing objectively evil out there lest there be an objective good! You must not allow this! You must deny that there is an evil and that there is a good!”

I believe this is why pleasure is God’s territory. The demons can only twist the pleasures that God has made. They can only rip them out of their context and use them as they see fit. If you have true pleasure though, it is a transcendent experience. It draws you into a reality beyond yourself. You see the world as it is.

And isn’t that what we’ve talked about here before? The Christian can look at the world in such a way. He can say it is beautiful and wonderful and good. The Christian can say that there is such a thing as love and he can even affirm that he is not just a machine. He is a being in the image of God.

In fact, the Christian should engage in such thoughts. The more we think about the world as it is and see the wonder and beauty of it all, the more we will be drawn to the one who is wonderful and beautiful. The more we participate in true pleasure, the more pleasurable he will be to us.

I recently chatted with a lady who talked about having anxiety attacks. Now I used to have those frequently in the past, so I was able to offer some advice. Before too long though, she began talking to another lady nearby about how their pastor nailed it in his sermon the other night. I was curious so I asked what it was on. I was told it was about how we should be giving money to the poor instead of buying gifts at Christmas.

Somehow, I think anxiety attacks and messages like that are not unrelated.

So what of it? Is it okay to buy those gifts at Christmastime? Could we not spend the money going to buy that Wii to help children in underdeveloped nations? Could the money that went to buy that DVD for your brother have gone to the Salvation Army? Could the money for that book you got your Mom not go to the church offering?

Somehow, this reminds me of someone else commenting on an expensive item. Could not it have been sold and the money given to the poor? If you are thinking biblically, I hope you’ll remember that that was Judas Iscariot who asked that to Jesus upon seeing him being anointed with expensive perfume. His answer was that they would always have the poor with them, but not him.

Don’t get me wrong on this. I’m not against giving money to the poor. I have great admiration for the ministry of the Salvation Army for instance. I do believe that you should be supporting your local church. However, I don’t think you should suffer guilt for buying gifts on Christmas day.

And no, I’m not saying this because I expect a lot of loot. As I’ve got older, I’ve found there is less and less I really want. Most of my gifts are in the line of books. I’ve asked mainly for household items this year though. The big one for me will probably be a vacuum for the apartment. Thus, I’m not saying this out of my own interest.

I do know what Christmas was like growing up though. For me, I loved walking into my aunt’s house on Christmas Eve and seeing the place loaded up with gifts. I could not believe it each year. It seemed there were more and more. Of course, as I grew older, the place got smaller and smaller. I now see the greatest joys are the gag gifts sometimes given and the “Who’d want it?” gifts.

Being away from home at a much greater distance now, I have had to rely on my own traditions still. I made sure my roommate and I went out and bought a Christmas tree. I have a few gifts underneath it already. I plan to keep tradition with my family until I get married and start having a family of my own to build our traditions with.

I think several other children deserve that as well.

I have no problem with you giving a gift to someone on Christmas. Each gift is a way of saying “I care for you and I want you to know that.” Generally, when I buy gifts, I have been most secretive. I don’t usually like people to tell me what they want. I try to study the person and see if I can get them something that I know will match their heart. If my mother’s words are any indication, I do a good job!

There is a great joy in seeing someone upon a gift and see that smile on their face. I don’t think there is any wrong in that. Could the money have been spent elsewhere? Sure it could have! Let’s stop though before we go down this road and see if there are any other examples we should consider.

You’re a married man and you just spent a bundle to take your wife out for your 25th anniversary. That money could have gone to the poor. Did you do wrong?

You just went to the ball game with your son for some bonding. That money could have gone to the poor. Did you do wrong?

You got on a plane and flew to be a bridesmaid in your sister’s wedding. That money could have gone to the poor. Did you do wrong? (Never mind how much your parents spent on the wedding!)

With everything we do, the money could have gone to the poor! It could have gone instead of you buying gas in your car or even buying your car! The money you use to buy groceries or pay for the internet could have gone there. The money you used to buy piano lessons could have gone there.

Let’s not forget about time! The time I spent watching Smallville could have been spent in Bible Study. Did I do wrong? I don’t think so. I’m not a machine. I’m allowed some leisure.  The time you spent soaking in the tub could have been spent in prayer instead. Does that mean you did wrong? The time you spent cooking a meal for your family could have been spent in evangelizing on the streets.

Granted, many of us might need to get our priorities more in alignment at times, but I think while this preacher’s message was well-intentioned, it lays an unnecessary burden on people. We should support those less fortunate than ourselves and devote time to Christian activity, but we have to remember that we can’t just give, give give. We have to relax some as well and the apostles pointed out that we have to care for our own families as well. Yes. That applies even to those in ministry.

This Christmas, when you’re with family and friends, enjoy the gifts they give you, and enjoy the gifts you give them, and be sure to remember the gift God gave you, that of his son. Don’t let guilt kill your holiday. (And it only will if you let it.)

I often picture myself as a Timothy without a Paul. In all honesty, I am amazed that it seems so many people look up to me. I know my roommate has made it clear enough times that he admires me, and he’d tell you that just as many times I tell him that I don’t see why. That is my problem and it is something I’m working on.

I thought about it last night though. I was struggling with an issue and thought about how I’ve avoided some things since I’ve come to this town with a roommate. There are some things I just haven’t done and I’m a better person in many ways. If you asked what was different, I would tell you that I have a friend nearby.

As an example, I’ve said before that I can’t swim. I’m hydrophobic. My roommate, on the other hand, I swear is half-fish in the water. It has been through our experiences at the Y that I have wanted more and more to get over that fear and learn how to swim. Is it something he’s said? Nope. He’s never told me I should join him in swimming or told me my fear is silly or anything like that. Instead, he’s just been a friend and in seeing him enjoy himself and knowing that I need to show him I trust him, I await more and more my chance to plunge. Fortunately, I have other friends who are sure I will.

It seems overall for me that my own attitude is improving in many cases. Things I used to dwell on endlessly I don’t any more. Of course, I still have my blah periods. I am really a quite melancholy and quiet individual. Those times aren’t lasting as long as they used to though. I know I have a friend beside me.

So I thought about this last night and the things I’ve avoided and it occurred to me “What if your roommate not only admires your knowledge, but sees you as a spiritual role model also?” I’d never really thought about that before. Could I be showing him Christ in the way I live my life and not just in how I think and do apologetics and argue with skeptics?

Now, you might think the thought of being a spiritual role model would lead to arrogance.  It was just the opposite. It made me immediately feel quite humble and think about the way I was living my life and how I needed to keep living a good and pure life in order to be sure to not risk leading just myself astray but him as well. I’m not saying if I stumbled, he would. I doubt it. However, I would lose some of my example and impact I could have on his life.

Then though, I thought that in many ways, I have been one all along. To everyone I meet, I am to be a spiritual example. I am to show them what Christ is like. Am I really doing that? I can look at many instances in my life where I don’t think I am. I can look at the struggles and temptations I have and really wonder.

I can also look back at the sin in my past. I recall doing some interviews with someone in the recent past and how I told him some of them. It didn’t change his view of me. He wrote that I had crafted sin, but not to be insulting. He meant it to say that I had been there and I knew what it meant to screw up. I look back at that and hope I never do such again for the sake of those around me.

Is he looking up to me there? Well, I can’t say for sure. I know I admire his walk though and that’s something that probably helps also. Remember Ecclesiastes 4:9-12? A friend is always a good thing to have when you are dealing with anything. Somehow, at the end of the day, I know when I come home, that I am safe. I have my friend here.

Now will I find a mentor someday soon? I certainly hope so. There’s so much more out there I need to learn and want to learn. Until then though, what am I to do? I am to look at the way I am living my life. Am I showing those around me the life of Christ? I should show it to all, but how can I show it to strangers if I can’t even show it to the friends closest to me?

Faithful readers! Do pray for me in this. It is a struggle I face and rest assured that while I may seem to some of you maybe to be at a level you wonder if you can reach, and I don’t mean that in any arrogant sense, it isn’t easy and it requires much work and even I am lazy at times. Pray for me as I am one like you as well. I will bleed if you cut me also. As I said in an earlier blog, I am simply trying to climb that mountain, and I hope you’ll help me reach the top as I help you.

I seem to notice a contrast between different people. When I debate someone on the Problem of Evil, they always bring up an idea that makes the Earth look like a hideous place where evil is around every bend. On the other hand, the Christians, like myself, see this place as having evil, yes, but that the good is by far overwhelming.

However, we believe that we are the people of the truth. Surely there must be some explanation for this discrepancy. Why is it that the non-believer sees so much evil that it outweighs the good? As I pondered this last night, I came to a conclusion that hinges on the way God is viewed.

Peter Kreeft says in his book “Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing” that everything on Earth points to either Heaven or Hell. If that is the case, and I think it is, everything here is that which points beyond itself. Everything screams that this is not all there is. I think even evil screams that. Evil tells us that things are not as they were meant to be. This world is not in its final state.

In “The Man Who Was Thursday” G.K. Chesterton speaks about a character that when seen from one view, is thought by many that he is so evil that there cannot be any good. However, there are others who look and see the good side that they realize there must be an explanation for the evil. One view is true and one is false.

Now it’s not my point tonight to show which it is. I am simply wanting us to see how this problem is approached by those from the non-Christian side. My suspicion is that our lives are preparing us to take on either the nature of Heaven or the nature of Hell. When we reach each place, it will simply be stepping into what is called aeveterinity in the way we have been going.

Why do the non-believers see so much evil? Because they are resisting God at this point and are not wanting to see the good. Since they do not want to see the good, God is granting them their wish and they are seeing the evil.  The more though they come to see good as it is and want the good for the sake of the good, the closer they will get to God.

As for us, we are making it our goal to see the world as it is, the way God would have us to see it. In doing so, we see that the creation truly is good as God said it is at creation. True, it is fallen, but do we really think the evil in the world can overwhelm the good of the creation?

We look at evil as a mere interruption of sorts. This is especially true of death. Death is a temporary good-bye for the Christian. For the atheist, it is still the greatest evil. It is that which is to be resisted to no end. When death comes, that is it. The non-Christian cannot view it as the Christian does.

For the Christian, all works together for good. Creation is not an accident. God is still in control of it. We do not have to think that we are in a funhouse of horror with danger around every bend. Instead, we are children that are in a huge playground and exploring it for the joy of discovery.

This could be a large part of Heaven in fact. It could be that we then have all of forever to explore the rest of the creation and see all the wonder God has made. Such is why I stated that when a non-Christian starts to love the good for the sake of the good, then he is getting closer to God. This is why C.S. Lewis told us that Hell has been unable to create a pleasure. They can only twist the pleasures of God. (Rest assured when they do, they actually become lesser pleasures.)  If someone comes to true pleasure, it will get them closer to God.

How about you? Are you seeking good for the sake of good? Or are you looking out for yourself only and seeing a world of evil all around? Be wary if you are, for it means you are getting closer to Hell instead of Heaven. Perchance if that is the case, you might want to check to see who your loyalty lies to.

I’d like to suggest something for your Bible reading. I read a few chapters of Scripture every day and I’ve been going through the book of Ezekiel now in the OT. I find it extremely fascinating in that as I have been reading, I have been suddenly confronted with texts that I find Trinitarian in nature.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know the Trinity is in the OT. Of course, I believe it’s easier to see with the revelation of the NT. I do believe though that you can go back through the OT with the lens of the NT on and see the revelation of Christ everywhere. One way to do that is to see the Trinity.

Consider if you were watching a detective movie or TV show. The first time through, you might not solve the case. Then, you do figure out who did it and you go through and watch it again. All of a sudden, you see that things do fit in perfectly and if you had been looking, you would have known them all along, and your insight is greater for it.

I’d like to suggest two passages I’ve come across thus far. The first is in Ezekiel 3:

22 The hand of the LORD was upon me there, and he said to me, “Get up and go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you.” 23 So I got up and went out to the plain. And the glory of the LORD was standing there, like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown.

24 Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet. He spoke to me and said: “Go, shut yourself inside your house. 25 And you, son of man, they will tie with ropes; you will be bound so that you cannot go out among the people. 26 I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, though they are a rebellious house. 27 But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says.’ Whoever will listen let him listen, and whoever will refuse let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.

Now notice what is going on here. I’m no expert on Hebrew, so I can’t confirm anything yea or nay. However, I do believe there is a possibility of this showing up here. We have the hand of the Lord and then appearing before the glory of the Lord in the form of a person. My belief is that when there is a theophany in the OT, we can generally take it to be Christ. The only one that could be an exception that I know of right off is Genesis 18 and the three men that came to Abraham.

However, if that is the case, we have the hand of the Lord referring to the actions of the Father, the glory of the Lord, referring to the Son, and then the Spirit of the Lord, which of course, refers to the Spirit. Now if it is the Spirit or not that is speaking, I am unclear of. However, I do see three persons working together in this passage.

The next is in Ezekiel 8:

1 In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign LORD came upon me there. 2 I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man.  From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. 3 He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance to the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood. 4 And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain.

Look what happens again. The hand of the Lord comes on Ezekiel and then he is standing before a man much like his vision in Ezekiel 1. (Go read that vision and see if that man is not in the position of deity.) Then, Ezekiel is taken by the Spirit and sees the glory of the God of Israel. This I would take to refer to either the Shekinah or the temple, though most likely, that would usually refer to the Shekinah. (This was the presence of the Lord in the cloud.)

What’s my point in this? Trinitarianism runs all throughout the Bible. Now this is just Ezekiel and only two passages, but you can find references in several places. I already have an Arian who doesn’t know what to do with Genesis 19:24 because it says the YHWH on Earth rained fire down from the YHWH out of Heaven.

Too often, we have rejected the OT. This is a shame. It is just as much our heritage as any other part of Scripture is. We should embrace it and look in it to see Christ as much as we do in the NT.

Recently at the apologetics conference, I heard a great talk on problems of Open Theism and how God is truly timeless. I heard it expressed in a way I never had before and it really left me thinking. I have also been reading Gordon Clark’s “Thales to Dewey” with the constant debate between rationalism and empiricism. How do we know what we know?

Now what I am about to put forward here is just speculation. However, it could help spark someone else’s thoughts. Maybe someone will comment the missing piece. Rest assured, I have no conclusions definitely and I will spend much more time pondering this. I’m wanting to invite you along on this journey though and you can get a glimpse into what’s going on in my mind. (Some of you, I anticipate, are getting nightmares now.)

I believe that God experiences everything in the eternal now and knows everything in the eternal now. Right now, God is creating the world, seeing his Son die on the cross, and unleashing judgment on those sinners who haven’t repented at the great white throne judgment, as well as enjoying eternity with you and I.

Now how about our knowledge? Plato’s idea is that we know because we saw the forms in between our lives. Now it’s not likely he believed in reincarnation, but that is just the best possible theory he had at the time for explaining how we know the eternal ideas called the forms.

Aristotle was different. Aristotle thought that information came through the senses mostly. Now Plato was not against sense experience. Plato was against the idea that all knowledge came through that for he thought there were many things you do not know through your senses.

Augustine came and said that the forms were eternal ideas in the mind of God and since we are in the image of God, we are given that knowledge when we are born. It is not explicit though. It is implicit within us and when certain triggering events come along, we recognize them.

Then Aquinas came and Christianized Aristotle and again returned emphasis to the senses. This led to Locke with his theory of the blank slate or “Tabula Rasa.” This was eventually followed by Berkeley who denied the reality of the material world, the skepticism of Hume, and the idea of Kant that we can’t know the reality of external things in themselves.

I see this as a type of natural progression of the idea as one who gives more credence to Plato’s theory of knowledge than Aristotle’s. I ponder though how it went with Berkeley. We are told by the skeptical community that morality is relative, which is to be put in contrast to things that are objective, like science.

But why should we on the basis of naturalism see science as objective? Why should we believe that senses that are the result of an accident can tell us about the nature of the external world? Why should we believe it even exists? If we can’t know the things in themselves, then how can we know they even exist?

Now this is my theory. Things exist and are true because they are eternally true in the mind of God. What that means is not that the objects are eternal themselves, but that God knows time and he knows the way things are at each moment in time. Whatever is before me is there based on the knowledge of God.

This also means that it is based on relationships. Now there is naturally a relationship between everything. My computer exists. There is a subject and a predicate there. The computer is that which partakes in existence. This is also why my epistemology is specifically a Christian epistemology as the God of Christianity exists eternally in a relationship.

Thus, truth is eternally known in the mind of God and when we discover truth, we are simply discovering that which God affirms as true. It will also have to be a Trinitarian concept. I’m not even sure if truth can truly exist in a universe from a monad god. I have far less basis in a naturalistic universe.

Again, these are just my thoughts. Do I have a reconciliation of predestination and free-will yet? No. I’m still chewing on that and maybe in some time I will post some thoughts on it. These are just the ideas I have now, and I certainly hope that there is something to them.

Most of my praying is done at night. I’ll admit that is something I should probably change, but I am hardly what anyone would call a prayer warrior. Nevertheless, I want to share with you a nightly prayer I say. Sometimes I drop out of the habit of saying it, but a few months later, I’m in it again. It came largely from thinking about how C.S. Lewis said somewhere that one of the dangers of our life is that we keep picturing God as we think he is so much that we don’t see him as he really is and we need to open up to the fact that our ideas could be wrong.

Take this with Scripture. Perchance someone is a Calvinist. I think it’d be good for them to approach the Scripture and say “Is there a chance that I could be wrong on this?” Let Scripture guide your beliefs instead of your beliefs guiding Scripture. To be sure I’m not going on other people, I am an orthodox preterist. I should read the Scripture and realize I could be wrong and if so, be ready to accept correction as the text is being understood.

Thus, with that in mind, here is the prayer I pray. It’s not word for word, but the same nuances are there every night.

I start addressing the Father and I come up with several terms from Scripture that remind me who he is and some outside of Scripture. Maybe some philosophical ideas that I think show his glory as well. I refer to him as holy and Ancient of Days and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for instance. Then, I say “Not as I see you, but as you are, may I see you.”

Then I come to the Son. Again, I say many similar things. I will speak of him being Messiah for instance and Savior and Lord. He is the Son of God, Son of Man, and Son of David. I will then address him and say “Not as I see you, but as you are, may you be to me.”

Next, for good Trinitarians like myself, is the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit is not given as many titles in Scripture as the Father and Son, but we have some. He is the Parcalette. He is the one that comes alongside us. He is the comforter. I then pray “Not as I see you, but as you are, may you be to me.”

I then come to the Trinity as a whole. I do think it’s important to understand each person of the Trinity to the best of our ability, but it’s good to ponder the nature of the Trinitarian relationship as well. I then pray that not as I see the Trinity, but as the Trinity is, may the Trinity be to me.

After this, I come to other areas. I pray about the world and say “Not as I see the world, but as you see it, may I see it.” This is the world God has put us in to change for his glory. I want to have the best understanding of that world and see it the way God sees it so I will have the passion to do what I am to do.

Then I say the same thing about my neighbor. I want to see my fellow man the way God sees them. Now in each of these, I’m not asking for omniscience. I just believe that God sees things as they are and I want to see them the same way. Of course, I also believe he sees them as they will be, but I want to see them as they are at this point in time.

Then I pray that about myself. We can often have the hardest time seeing who we are. I want to see myself the way God sees me. I want to believe all that is true about me and get rid of all that is false about me. We Christians should be conforming our lives to truth more and more everyday.

Now some of you might not care for this kind of prayer. That’s fine. If you want to use it though, great! Of course, I do still have prayers afterwards of thanks, praise, petition, forgiveness, intercession, etc. This is the one I pray first though as it helps to remind me of the one I am approaching and how I should constantly seek truth.