Church explosion

I have read or seen this many years ago. Worth mentioning for those who haven't heard the story.

Choir practice at the West Side Baptist Church, Beatrice, Nebraska, US, started at 19:20. Members were always prompt and singing usually commenced by 19:25. On March 1, 1950 a gas explosion demolished the church at 19:27. Yet all the choir members were late to church that one night.

Vandegrift and her sister were late because their car had broken down and her alternate ride was late picking them up.

The pastor, his wife and his daughter were late because the daughter’s dress was soiled and the wife was ironing another. The pastor had actually lit the furnace earlier in the evening and had returned home.

One choir member was working on an important letter while another choir member and her daughter were late because they had to tend to matters at her mother’s house before arriving.

Another man was late because he was taking care of his two sons and did not realize until the last minute that he was late.

Mitchell, the pianist for the choir, had planned to arrive 30 minutes early, but fell asleep after dinner, causing her and her mother to be late.

Two high school students, who usually rode together to choir practice, were late because one had to listen to the end of a radio program....

Joyce Black... waited until the last possible minute before leaving because of the cold weather. Black lived across the street from the church.

There is little doubt that God prevented their attendance and is a testimony to his grace.

Not an urban legend.

Monday quote

Unbelief is the result of incapacity engaged in argument.

Quiz stumper

I found this amusing

Though I think the question would be even better formulated thus:

If you choose an answer this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?

1. 0%
2. 25%
3. 25%
4. 50%

Stealing in broad daylight

This is concerning. Man steals bikes in several public places but no one is interested.

Arminianism and synergism

The Arminian perspective is that God saves man. It is God's power that effects salvation. Man is able to resist God. So even though God desires all men to be saved, he does not force salvation; this also means he does not change their will so that they may desire salvation, even though God woos men, and can limit man's actions.

This ability to resist has been taken to mean that man takes a role in his salvation, salvation is synergistic (God and man) in the Arminian perspective and monergestic in the Calvinist perspective.

I do not find these terms particularly helpful. I would not describe the Arminian perspective as synergistic, and if I were to accept such a label I find Calvinists play loose with the label; equivocating such that the ability to resist becomes saving oneself.

If the role of man and God in salvation is fundamentally distinct, then the term synergistic becomes less feasible. I will compare what God and man can do, and why, from the Arminian perspective.

Arminians belief that devotion and love is fundamentally an act of the will. Men have a degree of freedom that God has given them. Therefore God is unable to override such freedom without preventing love from being love. If God overrode such freedom then man would act devotedly toward him, but such actions would not arise from love. Since God desires love he does not do this, even though God has the ability to make us automatons. I have written about this here. Man's ability to reject God results from God's inability to do the logically impossible. The inability to do the logically impossible (God or man) is not a true limitation.

Arminians also believe that God saves men by an act of his grace. Yes, this may be because of our faith, but that is only because God has set the condition of faith. Thus man cannot save himself of his own accord. And if man wished to be saved and God declined to offer salvation then men would remain unsaved. Man does not have the power to save anyone including himself. This is not because salvation is logically impossible, it is clearly intrinsically possible as God can save people. But man lacks the capacity to save. The inability for man to save himself is a true limitation.

Limitations of power (or knowledge) are fundamentally different from limitations of logic. God is still omnipotent even if he cannot make a rock he cannot lift. God's role in salvation is essentially all of it. The fact that man has a role at all (accepting or refusing God's offer) is solely due to God's inability to do the logically impossible. Man's role is based on logical possibilities and God's role on power possibilities and these are categorically distinct. Calling Arminianism synergistic reflects a lack of understanding about these categories.

Monday quote

The exercise of liberty requires virtue if it is not to turn into a nightmare.

Theodore Dalrymple, "Choosing to Fail."

Dawkins on history

Australia's Q&A broadcast a discussion between Richard Dawkins and George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney a couple of weeks ago. I have read thru the transcript though I did not see the broadcast.

Dawkin's made a several claims that were incorrect. I wish to address a couple of them. A minor one was in response to Pell's comment that Darwin called himself a theist.

PELL: Well, science and religion are two different activities and in the Catholic Church you can believe, to some extent, what you like about evolution. I think Darwin made a great contribution. I remember talking with Julius Kornberg, a very distinguished biologist, and he's worked with ants for years and he said, you know, he's managed to change them by changing the conditions but there are a number of things that evolution doesn't explain. Darwin realised that. Darwin was a theist because he said he couldn’t believe that the immense cosmos and all the beautiful things in the world came about either by chance or out of necessity. He said, “I have to be ranked as a theist.”

DAWKINS: That just not true.

PELL: Excuse me it’s...

DAWKINS: It’s just plain not true.

PELL: It’s on page 92 of his autobiography. Go and have a look.

Incorrect reference aside it is partly true, though not quite how Pell put it. In The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, and Selected Letters, Darwin writes about reasons for his belief in God in the context of his belief gradually diminishing

When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species, and it is since that time that it has very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker. But then arises the doubt—can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?

I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.

An admission to theism at the writing of Origin that had subsequently become agnosticism. So while various arguments suggested theism to Darwin at some times in his life, this gradually gave way to unbelief. Pell is correct in his statement about Darwin convictions at the time he wrote his theory, though not later in life. This development is not clear from Pell's comment. However Dawkins refusal to acknowledge this is unwarranted, especially as he seems ignorant of these comments of Darwin.

However what is particularly astounding in this discussion is an earlier comment by Dawkins on slavery.

DAWKINS: When you say that Christianity has been responsible for a lot of good, including science by the way, which is somewhat ironic, I think that most of the great benefits in humanity, such as the abolition of slavery, such as the emancipation of women, which the Cardinal both—mentioned both of, these have been rung out of our Christian history without much support from Christianity. I, as an atheist, my friends as atheists, lead thoroughly worthwhile lives, in our opinion, because we stand up, look the world in the face, face up to the fact that we are not going to last forever, we have to make the most of the short time that we have on this planet, we have to make this planet as good as we possibly can and try to leave it a better place than we found it.

Leaving aside the massive improvement in the conditions for women within Christendom compared to pagan society, where does Dawkins get his ideas about abolition?

without much support from Christianity.

Christians were at the forefront of abolition, especially in Britain. John Newton eventually quit then repudiated his previous occupation because of his faith. William Wilberforce brought bills before parliament for years to put a ban on the slave trade.

Slavery is a complicated issue, but as far as abolition of the trading of slaves and the end of slavery as an institution, Christians were very much at the forefront.

---

I have not discussed Pell's comments here. In general I thought he did a poor job and I disagree with him significantly on several issues. It would take some time to address all of them.

Monday quote

It’s as though all human encounter were one big sore spot, inflamed with opportunities to unwittingly give, and truculently receive, offence.

Robert Hughes, Culture of Complaint.

Monday quote

I marvel that whereas the ambitious dreams of myself, Caesar, and Alexander should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant named Jesus should be able to stretch his hand across the centuries and control the destinies of men and nations.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821).

What language did Jesus speak?

In his article "What Language Did Jesus Speak? Why Does It Matter?" Mark D. Roberts argues that the main language spoken by Jews in the first century was Aramaic which he suggests is also Jesus' primary language. He also argues that Jesus was at least bilingual also speaking Hebrew, and probably trilingual also speaking Greek.

Most of what he writes seems reasonable, though I have some sympathy for the idea that the Jews spoke Hebrew. One place I may differ with Roberts is what we the Dead Sea Scrolls imply. He states Hebrew is more common in these Scrolls.

During and before the time of Jesus, there wasn’t just one version of Aramaic being used in Judea and beyond. Some Aramaic was official and formal. This is preserved, as you would expect, in official documents and inscriptions. Some was informal and common. This was spoken and has mostly been lost to modern scholars. The fact that Aramaic was used by Jews in Judea is supported by its use in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which are mostly in Hebrew, however), and in some ancient documents and inscriptions. Even many grave inscriptions around Jerusalem are in Aramaic, not Hebrew. It’s most likely that in Galilee, where Jesus was raised and where he began his ministry, Aramaic was the most common language of the people, though many would have been able to understand Hebrew and to get along in Greek as well.

And he is prepared to concede that the Qumran community may have spoken Hebrew in preference to Aramaic

By the time of Jesus, Aramaic was the most common language in Judea, though Hebrew may have been dominant in certain areas, such as Jerusalem or the Qumran community by the Dead Sea. Greek usage was also widespread in those regions during the first century A.D.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden in Qumran, but if many of them originated from elsewhere in Judea such as Jerusalem then perhaps Hebrew was more widespread than Roberts concludes?

Monday quote

How is it a man can make love to his wife thousands of times over the course of forty years and not be at risk for any sexually transmitted diseases, while another man can have three one-night stands and find himself crawling with sexually transmitted pests? And tell us again which behavior is more natural?

Douglas Wilson. Fidelity.

Escape from a North Korean prison camp

Probably the saddest story I have read in the last year.

His first memory is an execution. He walked with his mother to a wheat field, where guards had rounded up several thousand prisoners. The boy crawled between legs to the front row, where he saw guards tying a man to a wooden pole.

Shin In Geun was four years old, too young to understand the speech that came before that killing. At dozens of executions in years to come, he would listen to a guard telling the crowd that the prisoner about to die had been offered "redemption" through hard labour, but had rejected the generosity of the North Korean government.

Guards stuffed pebbles into the prisoner's mouth, covered his head with a hood and shot him.

In Camp 14, a prison for the political enemies of North Korea, assemblies of more than two inmates were forbidden, except for executions. Everyone had to attend them.

The South Korean government estimates there are about 154,000 prisoners in North Korea's labour camps, while the US state department puts the number as high as 200,000. The biggest is 31 miles long and 25 miles wide, an area larger than the city of Los Angeles. Numbers 15 and 18 have re-education zones where detainees receive remedial instruction in the teachings of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung, and are sometimes released. The remaining camps are "complete control districts" where "irredeemables" are worked to death.

Shin's camp, number 14, is a complete control district. Established around 1959 near Kaechon County in South Pyongan Province, it holds an estimated 15,000 prisoners. About 30 miles long and 15 miles wide, it has farms, mines and factories threaded through steep mountain valleys.

Shin and his mother lived in the best prisoner accommodation the camp had to offer. They had their own room, where they slept on a concrete floor, and they shared a kitchen with four other families. Electricity ran for two hours a day. There were no beds, chairs or tables. No running water.

If Shin's mother met her daily work quota, she could bring home food. At 4am, she would prepare breakfast and lunch for her son and for herself. Every meal was the same: corn porridge, pickled cabbage and cabbage soup. Shin was always hungry and he would eat his lunch as soon as his mother left for work. He also ate her lunch. When she came back from the fields at midday and found nothing to eat, she would beat him with a shovel.

Her name was Jang Hye Gyung. She never talked to him about her past, her family, or why she was in the camp, and he never asked. His existence as her son had been arranged by the guards. They chose her and the man who became Shin's father as prizes for each other in a "reward" marriage.

Read more

Qualifying inerrancy 2

My position on inerrancy is probably similar to the Chicago Statement on inerrancy. Some complain and quibble that it is pedantic, or leads to twisting Scripture, or has a loose definition of errancy.

Part of the problem comes from living in a world which is committed to accuracy, precision, and verbatim quotes. Having a somewhat low context society where much is expected to be spelled out does not help this problem either.

But the essence of inerrancy is the claim that the Bible is without error. Specifically it means no errors of fact. The qualifications of inerrancy are around what constitutes a fact.

Facts need to be read the way they are intended.

One cannot complain that a recorded fact is errant when the author did not make a claim the reader is imposing. We cannot complain that a quote is not verbatim when the author never intended it to be so—which incidentally will almost always be the case when we are translating a quote into a different language. A quote is meant to convey the meaning, exact words are not always necessary.

Nor can we complain that a fact lacks precision when the author was not being precise. Approximate details are approximate.

Also, just because exceptions and qualifications are not mentioned we cannot assert that there are none; the higher the context the discussion, the more that is assumed.

Further, we cannot argue that failure to mention an event means the author denies it happened.

My defending of inerrancy is not quibbling, it may be denying your assumptions about the nature of the text.

Monday quote

'Come, young Curdie, what are you thinking of?'

'How do you know I'm thinking of anything?' asked Curdie.

'Because you're not saying anything.'

'Does it follow then that, as you are saying so much, you're not thinking at all?' said Curdie.

The Princess and Curdie, George MacDonald (1824–1905).

Who is happy?

Dennis Prager wrote a commentary recently on happiness, a topic he has written about several times. Here are the qualities he thinks makes for happy people.

• People who control themselves.
• People who are given little and earn what they have.
• People who do not see themselves or their group as victims.
• People who rarely complain.
• People who have close friends.
• People who are in a good marriage.
• People who act happy.
• People who aren’t envious.
• People who don’t have high self-esteem.
• People who have few expectations.
• People who are grateful.

His article expands these statements.

Reasonable suggestions. Several are related such as gratitude and lack of complaining, the former can lead to the latter. Having few expectations can arise from contentment which tends to deflect envy. This list reinforces C.S. Lewis' claim that happiness is not obtained if sort directly, but happiness is secondary, resulting from pursuing other things.