Job Should Have Talked to Lewis

“The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.”

—C.S. Lewis

That's the concise way to look at the problem of pain and evil. Things like this are all in the way we look at them. Usually, when addressing the problem of evil, we start from “why should bad things happen to good people,” which is somewhat problematic. We ought to ask why we should not begin with the inverse: “why should good things happen to bad people?” Now, I know a many people I consider really good, nice people, but at the same time, I know that none of us is good when placed in comparison to the ultimate touchstone: God.

Christians should neither spend all their time listening to readings of Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, nor should we become convinced that we deserve good. Jesus says His way will be hard. He also tells us that His yoke is easy. Both are true. Life does not get any easier when one believes in Jesus in many ways, but at the same time, to know that there is a future hope makes all the difference. We are given a center to our life; our compass no longer simply spins around in no particular direction.

“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand.”

It is all very much a paradox. Lewis reminds us not to start telling everyone how much consultation faith always is. It is not. Things still hurt. Loved ones still die and leave us feeling their absence. The existence of an all powerful God only makes it more painful, since we know that God could intervene. We have that hope that His plans will work out in the future, but we are still stuck with both feet in the present. On the other hand, sometimes we don't need to be made to feel better so much as just to know that God has been there on the same journey we are on — and He has.

“[Jesus] made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!”

—Philippians 2.7-8 (NIV)

As I noted in my Good Friday meditation, this is only scratching the surface. Jesus not only walked the same Earth, felt the same feelings and then died a horrid death, but He also took upon our sins and was forsaken from the Father. When we feel pain, we only feel a tidbit of the pain of Jesus. This may not make everything easier, but it puts things into perspective.

So long as I am on this earth, not everything will make sense. That's where faith comes in. I have faith that God is a perfect God, and therefore know that I deserve nothing. More importantly, I have faith that God loves me anyway, even if I cannot always understand why everything happens the way it does. As Karl Barth said when asked to summarize his theology: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Challenge Set #10

For instructions on how to play the Challenge, click here (also see the modifications listed here).

Scoreboard
Kevin: 220 (up from 215 on April 16) — An incorrect but good guess concerning April 29 helps Kevin.
Flip: 130 (up from 105 on February 13) — Nietzsche and Homer moves Flip forward.
Christopher: 70
Jason: 35
Josiah: 30
Eduardo: 20
Ed: 10
Chris (answering vicariously for his wife): 10

New Questions
10.1) What are the three most popular countries for tourism in the world (in correct order). (10 pts.)

10.2) What was launched this day (May 14) in 1973? (5 pts.)

10.3) What was Ludwig Wittgenstein's view of how we could relate different religions? (10 pts.)

10.4) What part of speech is “accusative” in English? (5 pts.)

10.5) Who said this and where? (10 pts.)

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself—
Yea, all which it inherit—shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.

10.6) Whose shoe was lost this week during the evacuation of the U.S. Capitol Building and who returned it? (5 pts.)

Remaining Questions
9.3) What is happening at 6:00 PM, 13 days from now (presently, it is April 16). (5 pts.)

9.5) What bill has made it to the President's desk in recent days that has the support of retailers and is hated by some consumer advocates? (5 pts.)

My Alphabet of Web Sites

I found this via Christopher:

Here’s the gig…type the letter in your address bar and share the link where it takes you. Add a reason why to explain or defend yourself.

A: asisaid — Yes, yours truly comes up on the top spot for A.
B: BBC Backstage — I was just reading the other day about the new ability to manipulate BBC news coverage. Looks pretty handy.
C: Christian Hedonist — Kevin has switched names a few times, but he's as interesting as ever. Kevin's blog was the second one I ever read.
D: Drudge — Would a day be complete without my daily dose of Drudge? It might not be as pleasant as reading the Post-Dispatch, but it keeps me up-to-date when I don't have time to enjoy a leisurely paper reading.
E: Plain Package (that's ed.asisaid.com) — I'm haivng trouble viewing Ed's site right now in Safari, which is disappointing. He always has good stuff on his blog.
F: 5-Speed Cassette (falconportal.com) — Mark's blog. Another excellent blog, wherein Mark is presently laughing it up about RIAA problems.
G: Series 60 Phones and Linux (gagravarr.org) — It has been awhile since I looked at this site to assess the possibility of sync'ing my Nokia 3650 with GNU/Linux.
H: Here Somewhere: Stuff — One of my newer blogging reads from the master of the PhotoQuest, Flip.
I: ICR: Institute for Creation Research — I cannot remember when I visited this, but it was probably when I was researching sites for my Site of the Month column for the church newsletter.
J: BuzzingBye (josiah.ritchietribe.net) — Yet another great blog of a more technical nature. Josiah's on CS-FSLUG, as is Ed, mentioned above.
K: Kelley Blue Book — I haven't been there for awhile. I must not visit many “k” sites.
L: Live Page (Apple) — normally, I don't use Apple's default home page, but here it is anyway.
M: MacBytes — an excellent aggregator of Mac news.
N: News.com — CNet's tech news journal, which I use combined with Drudge to stay pretty well informed.
O: Orbit — The helpdesk/billing/monitoring area for customers at the datacenter that provides my dedicated server.
P: Palm.com — It has been awhile since I've been there! I wonder why it came up?
Q: Quezon — I found this page on Google when looking for an alternative readability checker for blogs. Christopher mentioned one a few weeks ago, but it is presently unavailable.
R: Real Software — I cannot remember the last time I was there. Odd.
S: Sakamuyo Christian Fellowship — an excellent new (almost one year old, actually!) organization that I've been helping (to a small extent) with; first and foremost it is Kevin's brainchild. Come join us for discussion!
T: Time to Believe — Michael's blog; he always has something different on there.
U: USA Network — I was looking up the history of USA Networks/HSN, Inc./InterActiveCorp. the other day; they are presently in the process of buying Ask Jeeves and spinning off Expedia.com. I was also looking at Monk, which I keep hearing good things about.
V: VersionTracker — The best place to find Mac software. I have a subscription there courtesy of my .Mac account.
W: What in Tarnation!?!? — I always need a little WIT!?!? and wisdom from Christopher.
X: XBox.com — I have no intention of buying an XBox 360, but with the announcement yesterday, I was curious to see what the actual specs were. It is depressing to see it is going to have more PowerPC goodness in it than my PowerMac G5 has.
Y: Yahooligans — this must have been an Apple included bookmark; I go to Yahoo.com sometimes, but never Yahooligans.
Z: Mac Zone — an online Mac store. I think this is another default bookmark in Safari. A better result would have been ZDNet, which I usually end up at every few days.

Early Evening Haiku

I.
A warm wind blows by,
Birds sing in the distant trees,
A savored hour.

II.
So much to say now,
Time does not permit it. Alas!
Let another time come.

III.
Moving a mountain,
A mustard seed faith is all,
Can I muster that?

A Theology of Pluralism: Out of Context

Part One in a Series on the Problems of Religious Pluralism

I am working on getting this piece published, so I decided against posting it here on this blog. I'm sorry about the inconvenience.

I Will Listen

I had not listened to this song in ages, but it has been stuck in my head for the last few days. I figured I might as well post part of it here, as such.

Hard as it seems
Standing in dreams
Where is the dreamer now
Wonder if I
Wanted to try
Would I remember how
I don't know the way to go from here
But I know I have made my choice
And this is where I stand
Until He moves me on
And I will listen to His voice

—Twila Paris

Karl Barth on Jesus

October 2004

“Cry, cry for death, but let the good win out in the end.”

This is a dramatic quote from the early part of the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus. The chorus sees that the situation is increasingly hopeless, but they refuse to believe that the good lose completely.

November 2004

“A poem should not mean
But be.”

This is an excerpt from Archibald MacLeish's famous poem, “Ars Poetica.” If you have not read “Ars Poetica” yet, go read it now.

December 2004

Christ-tide, I pray you.

This is a quote from Ben Jonson's the Alchemist that seemed appropriate. It is spoken by Ananias, the side kick to the main Puritan of the play, Tribulation Wholesome. Unlike Tribulation, Ananias seems to be a generally respectable character, despite his fear of popish elements in everything.

January 2005

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

“Thus passes away the glory of the world,” the quote declares. As it turned out, this quote was especially appropriate this year. This phrase is used during the installation of a new pope, so it makes sense that I started out the year with it, considering that we now have Pope Benedict XVI.

February 2005

If our parish-minister is grieved at our greater good, or prefers his credit before it, then he has good cause to grieve over his own rottenness and hypocrisy.

This was spoken by Gilbert Tennent concerning the problems of an “Unconverted Ministry.” This was a very controversial sermon that ended up being a part of what caused some to reject the revivalism of the Great Awakening. Tennent definitely did not mince words in this sermon.

March 2005

What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead.

A quote from the ever likable Sir John Falstaff, the friend of Prince Hal in Shakespeare's King Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. This particular quote comes from toward the end of Part 1 and deals with the question of the value of honor. This scene is similar to Juliet's famous “a rose by any other name” soliloquy from Romeo and Juliet. The big difference is that Juliet is thinking about whether she can marry a Montague, whereas Falstaff is thinking about all of the lives being lost in the name of honor — “a mere scutcheon.”

Plenty of Political Profiling

Found via Christopher:

Your Political Profile

Overall: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

I'm not fond of the term ethics for the second to last break down; it seems that what it terms “ethics” are not necessarily what I would term ethics, and some things I would term ethical fall in other categories. I mean, aren't ethics related to social issues, personal responsibility and so on? None the less, I think the “overall” score is about where I usually land on such linear quizzes (I like the more complex 2D profiles better, since liberal and conservative are such broad terms by themselves and become a lot more useful when you add a libertarian/authoritarian vertical axis to the standard right/left metric). Moreover, it does show that I'm on the fence in some categories, which would certainly be true. Feel free to post your results below.

Tim's Special BBQ Sauce

Ok, here's a first for asisaid. I present to you my new creation: Tim's Special BBQ Sauce.

• 1-2 oz. Maull's Sweet 'n Smokey Barbecue sauce.
• 1-2 oz. Sweet Baby Ray's Hickory Barbecue sauce.
• 5 jalapeno slices (or about 1/3 of a small, fresh jalapeno), finely diced.
• A liberal dash or two of crushed red pepper (dried).

Mix thoroughly. Microwave for one minute on low power, then twenty seconds on high power. Mix again. A small amount on a hamburger bun will add plenty of zest to you barbecue burger, for example; it should be good on other things as well. Bon appetite!

Project of the Day

I'm working on a paper refuting Heather Meacock's An Anthropological Approach To Theology: A Study of John Hick's Theology of Religious Pluralism, towards ethical criteria for a Global Theology of Religions (yes, that really is the title). Meacock doesn't say anything terribly useful beyond what John Hick himself has said already, so I could basically say I'm simply refuting Hickian Religious Pluralism.

At any rate, I'm trying to demonstrate how Hickian Religious Pluralism defeats itself through its own arguments. If all goes well, I'll have the paper finished up in the next few days, after which it may appear here as a multi-part series, for anyone interested. The paper defends Exclusivism and Inclusivism (arguing for a particular one of those two camps is beyond its scope) and shows why those two schools of thought are inherently more stable than Pluralism, despite Hick's claim of the opposite.

I'm having fun! I've been reading bits of this book for a month or two now, and today was the first day I actually put any response down on paper (well, on the magnetic platter of my hard disk, actually). So far, I have about eight double spaced pages of analysis; it will likely enlarge to ten to twelve by the time I finish.