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Graffiti, Fast Food, and the Defacement of Beauty

The world we inhabit is resplendent with beauty. A morning sunrise dances off the awakening dew. The blue and green of a country landscape speak peace into the soul. The awe-inspiring magnitude of half-dome silences our heavy hearts. Angels dance within the mist of a cascading river. Beauty calls out and demands to be contemplated.

Metaphysical Loneliness, Atheism, and the Face of God

The tragedy and irony of the digital age is that we in the western world are often lonely and isolated. Surrounded by our Facebook posts, tweets, Ipods, Ipads, Nooks, Kindle Fires, smart phones, and now, smart watches, we are ever connected, but rarely connecting. We meticulously manage our social media image, and it is easy to seem as if we have it all together. Look at all those pictures of me with my friends. Look at me at the Grand Canyons, and in Yellowstone, and in Europe. Check out this pic of me Bungee jumping in Australia. Look at my life. Isn’t it great? Aren’t I popular? Isn’t my life grand?

Our Longing for Omnipotence

In his book, A Great and Terrible Love,[1] Mark Galli says something I find very interesting about omnipotence. He says that if God were not omnipotent, we’d invent omnipotence and pin the attribute on him. And the reason, he says, is that we long for omnipotence. The more I think about it, the more I think he is onto something. I found this passage in something I wrote years ago, but it illustrates my point (since, after all, we have just celebrated Christmas):

Jude: Building one another up in an upside down world

It doesn’t take much to convince us that something is not right—the world is not the way it is supposed to be. For Christians, there is a kind of clarity to this judgment: we live in a “fallen world” and look forward to the day when God will fully restore all of creation to its pre-fallen state. But for now, it is as if the world is turned upside down.

3 reasons why you should read (and my favorite books of 2013)

One of the great pleasures in life is reading a good book. I love to read. I always have a book in my hand (or nearby). I’d hate to find myself with some extra time and nothing to read—I’d probably end up (horror) wasting that time flipping through Facebook on my phone—and miss out on the chance to enter the world of story or learn a thing or two about philosophy or science or theology.

What Best Explains the Mind to World Fit?

A deep fact about the nature of our universe is the remarkable conformity of our human minds to its patterning. According to John Polkinghorne, “we live in a world whose physical fabric is endowed with transparent rational beauty.”[1] From the large-scale structure of our universe described by cosmology to the small-scale processes described by quantum theory, our universe is characterized by a wonderful order that is expressible in concise and elegant mathematical terms. The Laws of Nature are breathtakingly simple—and suggestive—it is as if the universe is haunted by a Mind behind it all.

C.S. Lewis, Religion, Rocketry, and Other Worlds

In his essay “Religion and Rocketry”—originally published in 1958 as “Will we Lose God in Outer Space?”—C.S. Lewis raises the question of alien life in a world created by God. What if life was discovered on other planets? What would such a discovering mean for Christianity? Would such a discovery be the basis for a new attack on Christianity? Or seized by the faithful as the basis for a new defense?

Happiness is Edenistic, not Hedonistic

The world thinks of happiness hedonistically, God thinks of happiness edenistically. This is one of the central ideas of David Naugle’s highly recommended book Reordered Loves, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness. In a previous post, I discussed the contemporary view of happiness as pleasure. In light of our fatigue and failure to find happiness via pleasure, perhaps its time to consider God’s perspective on happiness and to consider the happiness that He offers.

Is it ever ok to lie? Bonhoeffer on Truth-telling and Deception

Is it ever morally permissible to tell a lie? On one end of the spectrum we find the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argues that it is never, under any circumstance, permissible to lie. To lie, according to Kant, would be to act in a way that is less than rational (hence, less than human) and to treat others as a means instead of an end. On the other end of the spectrum, the situational ethicist, the relativist, and the ethical egoist, may argue that lying is morally permissible at anytime and in any situation, given the desired outcome.

The (never-ending) Pursuit of Happiness

Do you want to be happy? Chances are, if you’re like most of us, the answer is a resounding yes. We Americans are obsessed with being happy. We pursue it with a sense of fervency and urgency—“if only I could have this experience, or that job, or this relationship, or that thing then…”—which should tip us off to the fact that something has gone amiss. Like a perpetually receding end zone, happiness remains in view but always 10 yards away.