Fergie's Freedom

Fergie’s pink eyes always yearn for home. Fergie is an exceptional guinea pig. Whenever she is removed from her cage and allowed to roam freely, she exhibits only guarded enthusiasm. Sure she’ll pad around awhile, depositing a turd here and a turd there. If she’s particularly anxious, she might even leave a trail of poops.
But inevitably Fergie’s thoughts turn back to home. For her, sojourning in the great expanses falls short of the hype. Before long, Fergie winds her way back to the outskirts of her cage, and gazes longingly at her little hut through the bars towering a foot above her head.
She’ll wait there for a time, thinking her caretaker will be bright enough to see that she’s done with her imposed romp and wants back in her cage. When she realizes her tender is not so informed, Fergie popcorns up and over the bars in a single bound and scurries blissfully back to her house, keeping her rump to all astonished onlookers.
Fergie knows that true freedom is not freedom from all boundaries. We would do well to learn this from Fergie.
We don’t understand freedom, otherwise Fergie’s behavior wouldn’t surprise us—her athletic prowess notwithstanding. We tend to live under the belief that we are free agents. Not so. In reality, we are wholly dependent on our Creator; we only live because He grants and sustains our life.
Unfortunately, we stubbornly strive against this fact, determined to make it on our own in the wide open and allegedly boundless spaces. Having cut ourselves off from God, we find our world a frightful place, where we quickly start grasping and possessing--jealous of what we don’t have, hating those who do; far from the promised freedom, we find ourselves prisoners of our own insecurity. Fergie shakes her head and looks to home; so should we.
Let’s go back to God and rest in the cradle of His holiness. Only there are we truly free.

What is the true arbitrator of morality? Part 3

Thirdly, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we are the products of only matter/energy. The epistemological implications of evolution dogged Darwin: can we know we know anything?

The eighteenth century philosopher and patron saint of materialism, David Hume, explained that all we can know is what we receive as impulses impinging on our nervous system; truth is nothing more than a consistent outcome from a repetitive series of stimulus/responses. If we are only the outcome of matter/energy slow-cooked in a crucible of chance, then Hume would be perfectly correct. But how could concepts of right and wrong ever emerge from such a state? They couldn’t.

Hume’s ideas awoke Kant from his intellectual slumbers. Even though Kant disavowed any possibility of uniting the particulars with the universals—nature with grace—creature with Creator--he saw the necessity of the universal of a transcendent morality, and proceeded through his concepts of the maxim and the categorical imperative to prove the existence of God—albeit, despite his Lutheran upbringing, a deist god, not the Christian God. Kant took a leap of faith because practical reason demands that there is a transcendent morality, and in the process showed that there has to be a God.

The point is the evolutionary philosophy, which is founded on the eternal existence of matter/energy, cannot accommodate concepts like morality without contradicting itself. I am reminded of one such philosopher who went to great lengths to show that infanticide, war, rape, and such are all valid mechanisms of natural selection, and therefore not wrong. Okay, at that point he appeared to be living his worldview. But then he finished by saying that we all really should try to love one another. Sorry, dude, you cannot do that. Your worldview simply doesn’t have any explanation or justification for making such a leap. But you made it anyway because you knew that it is impossible to live your worldview in the real world. So you imported morality—Judeo-Christian concepts of love and justice, I might add—into your philosophy in order to make it livable. What it should tell you is your worldview is fatally flawed.

We can know because the Creator, God, is both infinite and personal. He created an ordered universe; therefore, it can be investigated. He interacts intimately with us whom He created for that purpose, so we can know and understand the cosmos He placed us and our purpose in it. Being personal, God’s right order of things naturally involves relationships. And these relationships are driven and maintained by Love. But Love cannot be divested from the right order of things, otherwise everyone would attempt to interrelate on the basis of what feels right, and the result would be chaos and destructive relationships.

Love is therefore inextricably tied to the right order. This inseparable and essential union demands and defines the transcendent morality. The only way we can apprehend this morality and so exist in and fulfill the purposes for which we were created is if we walk intimately with God; for God is the only source of the Love and order that defines true life; we depend solely on our Creator for our existence. When we turn our back to him by believing we can be our own moral agents, we die. Sadly, that is the state we are all in. And this state of death keeps us floundering in the particulars without any way to the universal we know must exist because we cannot really live without it.

But precisely because God is both merciful and just, he hasn’t left us in death. Instead, in a real moment in history, He took on flesh and dwelt among us and entered death, and then, because He died unjustly, by the power of God’s Love and in His justice, Christ was raised back to life: Christ lives! And because He lives, we can live with Him if we only acknowledge Him as King and live to please Him, which is to conform to the Love and order God demands and created us for—to seek God to be our one and only moral agent. And we trust that we will please Him because, through Christ’s faithfulness to God for the restoration of His creation, God will be faithful and dwell forever with us who believe Him, trust Him, and so obey Him, and because of God’s faithfulness we will succeed.

Jesus the Christ promises us: “I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears my message and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has crossed over from death to life.”

What is the true arbitrator of morality? Part 2

Secondly, if morality is instinct, then everyone would be moral, which is not the case, even in the liberal European countries Professor Coyne mentioned. I’ve visited and worked in several of them, and selfish-ambition reigns there as here.

If morality were a product of natural selection, then morality would be hardwired in all of us; it would be instinct, not something capricious. A female black widow will always eat the male. A nursing mother dog will always push away a weak pup. If given a chance, a male lion will always eat the cubs. When one is hungry, whether, beast or human, one will eat. Instinct will always win out unless prevented by illness, the environment, or overcome by a stronger member of one’s species. Instinct would be the handmaiden of natural selection, if natural selection were the governing force of the living world.

But people are not naturally moral. People will invariably pursue their own agendas over the agendas of others. As I intimated in Part 1, people will pick and choose their so-called altruistic acts based on their own agendas. Hence, what might appear to be altruistic really isn’t anything more than the pursuit of selfish-ambition.

We must also avoid narrowly defining morality in this conversation. Morality is much more than acts of kindness. Morality is founded on pure justice and mercy; consequently, morality will necessarily encompass every aspect of relationships, from the most unseen to the most conspicuous. We cannot hope to be truly moral unless our core thoughts and aspirations are completely selfless.

Don’t play the self-interest card here. The argument put forth by Prof. Coyne is that morality is a development of evolution to secure the race. The only way to ensure such complete security is if everyone considers the other person before themselves. In that way every person’s needs would be met and every person would be able to achieve their ultimate purpose in society. Selflessness insures societal strength, self-interest undermines it.

The human race is completely selfish from birth. Therefore, morality cannot be an instinct. Morality doesn’t come naturally for us. Quite the contrary, morality is something we spend time trying to circumvent with the least cost, not something we easily embrace and willingly pursue. This would not be true if morality were the product of a natural selection; we wouldn’t be able to resist it if it were. Indeed, we wouldn’t even think about it anymore than we do hunger; when a stimulus occurs, we react to the stimulus.

Morality in the human race is far removed from any kind of a stimulus/response expected with natural selection; therefore, morality is not the result of evolution.

Morality exists because a moral God created us. We are immoral because, in our conceit, we have turned our backs to our Creator in deference to our selfish-ambition.

God gave Humankind moral laws for at least three important reasons: 1) to give us a picture of the right order God intended, and, therefore, must have for the cosmos, 2) to demonstrate we have rejected that right order in deference to our selfish-ambition, and 3) to protect us from ourselves until He completes His plan for restoration.

If we turn back to God, we will begin to live moral lives—not perfectly, because God’s restoration is not yet completed; the world is not yet just. But by walking with God, today, God enables and motivates us to act justly with mercy and forgives us when we fail. And in the process we will see ourselves and others around us being restored. This is what Jesus the Christ has accomplished for us. All we must do is acknowledge Him as King and, for that reason, live to please Him. We can be confident that He will be faithful because He’s alive!

What is the true arbitrator of morality? Part 1

One Professor Coyne of Chicago recently published an editorial in USAtoday in support of his book, “Why Evolution is True.” The thesis of his editorial is that our genes that have been carefully developed through the agency of natural selection and Human reason are the rightful and best arbitrators of morality. He rejects, as the good atheist he professes to be, the idea of a god being such an arbitrator, because God, being inherently good, could only commit moral acts; yet a quick reading of the Bible shows God sanctioning the deaths of thousands of people. No, he says; evolution has created the moral code in people for the strengthening of Human society. People are moral even as atheists. Prof. Coyne supports this by reminding us how moral people in the liberal and atheist European countries are. We don’t need religion; we only need our instincts to be guided by our intellect.

I wrote a letter to the Editor of USAtoday in rebuttal of Coyne’s thesis; it’s unlikely they will publish it. Consequently, I will use this blog over the next few weeks to challenge Prof. Coyne’s assertions.

First, any truly moral act is founded on pure justice and mercy. Only God acts purely morally because only He is perfectly just and merciful. We can only act morally, therefore, if we are walking with God.

Everything God does is moral, even if it doesn’t appear so to us. Even the slaughter of thousands of people as described in the Old Testament? Prof. Coyne would no doubt counter. We are in rebellion against our Creator. He would certainly be just in vaporizing everything and starting over. But throughout the OT God was establishing His plan for restoration, and this required the execution of justice to pave the way for the ultimate expression of mercy in justice to be revealed: the advent, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of the God-Man, Jesus the Christ. God knows what He is doing, we don’t.

This is a difficult teaching. But Jesus told us the basis of judgment is very simple: one either enters the light or one doesn’t. Those who resolutely ignore God’s call to turn back to Him and remain in the dark will enter into eternal reprobation. There is nothing complex in this. God empowers us in every way because of the faithfulness of Jesus the Christ to enable us to turn to Him. And then He empowers us to enter and remain in the Light by faith alone (believing Him, trusting Him, and doing what He expects on the basis of that belief and trust). Jesus said come to Me all who are weary and weighed down (isn’t this all of us?) and He will give them rest, and then learn from Him because His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

Why aren’t people coming by the droves into the light? The answer is pride. They like Prof. Coyne, and I wish him no ill will, want to be their own arbitrators of moral behavior, and they have adopted a system of thought that appeases their consciences so they can do that without regret. Prof. Coyne spoke in pride how he rescued a hapless postman who had dropped his parcels--certainly a nice act. Yet, contrary to what the noble professor might admit, he will assess the next occasion using his reason, which he stated is our best dictator of morality, and decide against it, despite the protestations of instinct to the contrary. The reasoning will be quite convincing, I’m sure, such as the professor is late to an important meeting; or, in the interim the professor learned that the postman is a theist, so the professor decides the extra work will be due penance for the postman’s stupidity.

God’s moral economy doesn’t work that way. If we walk in the light, which is how it must be with God because he is perfectly just and merciful and He doesn’t change, then we must always do the moral thing, regardless of whether it’s an inconvenience or not, or our opinion of the person(s)in question.

Therefore people chose to stay in the dark because God’s moral economy appears too expensive. The irony, as I have already intimated, is that it isn't; because of Jesus’ faithfulness, God impels, empowers, picks up, and forgives everyone remaining in the light. And, instead of eternal reprobation, all such light-dwellers will have eternal life. This is the restoration I spoke of that God has accomplished through Jesus the Christ.

God will restore the right order of all things, where everyone walks with God, and, therefore, the cosmos remains just (right order is maintained, hence the concept of justice vanishes because justice is really only a course adjustment back to the right order of things), and all relationships, starting between God and Humans and proceeding to all those between Humans, subsist perfectly in Love (the concept of mercy disappears because the right order of things has been restored, hence there is no injustice to be reckoned).

God is faithful to His promise of restoration, and, therefore, perfectly just and perfectly merciful. And we can be certain of this because Christ is alive!

My Wife's Hands

Everyone who knows me knows how much I adore my wife. I love everything about her. She brings no end of enjoyment to my life; she is a book in progress that I cannot put down.

Recently we were travelling together on a tour bus on our way to Florence (that's another story). I noticed her hand gently clutching her camera in her lap. What first struck me about this otherwise common occurrence was that she didn't hold it possessively in a kind of condescension, or in a cold indifference, as if it was expected that she should be toting a camera; no, she held the instrument as she would a blessing, a gift, and a privilege. She cradled her camera with a sense of thankfulness. There was no ostentation in her grip--the designer's imprint meant very little to her. She held her camera protectively, as she might hold a child's hand. She did this not so much because the camera was expensive and she wanted to keep it from harm--although, I suppose, in all honesty, that was part of it. More importantly, and what was clearly evident from her loving grasp, she was keeping safe the memories recorded there--those hard copies of slices of her life and the lives of those friends and family she so cherished, all carefully archived for posterity.

I love to hold my wife's hand. Through that lovely soft hand of hers she so often feeds me with a strength and solidarity that has no other origin, and she invariably effects this when I need it the most. She understands me so well as to know precisely when to take my hand. And I am always the better for it. I trust, too, that through that same hand she also receives from me the confidence and solace that sometimes elude her. I at least pray that that will be so.

Perhaps it is rather morbid to suggest, but if ever I would be fortunate enough to be next to her when my life is fading away, I should want to be holding her hand. I can think of no better way to die than to see the escorting angel smile and feel my wife's assurance--to pass from this life to life eternal in seamless love.

I enjoy watching my wife's hands--studying them--marveling at their beauty and form--reveling in their charm and industry. Her hands are purposeful in all they do, kind to all they touch, and gifted in all they accomplish. My wife's hands are the ready instruments of God's love.

The Real Scare of Halloween

Today is October the thirty-first. On this day in 1517 AD, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the doors of Wittenberg Castle Church and challenged the status quo. It is also Halloween, the day on which every year we celebrate the status quo.
I have to admit that I’m not a great proponent of this annual nod to Satan and the titillations of toying with our fears and dipping our toes in the Styx, as if we wanted to try death on for size to assure ourselves that it’s not that bad.
People will tell me that it is all in fun. And there was a time in my youth when I happily joined in with the crowd and submitted myself to the many thrill rides of fear. I reveled with the rest of them in the rush of dread. But I’ve learned that there is enough real hell in this life to overcome without my need to fabricate it for my amusement.
And certainly death is nothing to celebrate. Death is the great curse upon all creation. All the universe groans in agony while it waits longingly for the relief that will finally come on the day when death will be put to death. It took a titanic act of love on the Creator’s part to make that happen, for Jesus died for us and was raised again in power so that in Him we might have eternal life. Why would we want to look back on that death, like Lot’s wife looked back on Sodom, which cost so much for us to be finally freed? Jesus wept at the sight of the anguish and hopelessness that death has brought on the human race and all of creation. We should weep too.
Having said all that, I, like all the rest of the families on our block, filled a bowl with candy and dutifully doled out the morsels to all the little ghouls, goblins, monsters, supermen, princesses, witches, fairies, ballerinas, cowboys, ghosts, skeletons, astronauts, dirt-bike racers, lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my, aren’t I the little hypocrite. Yes I am. And this will be my last year of caving under the pressures of the mainstream.
But the impetus for this blog was not self-confession; although I do feel quite liberated by this confession. The main reason is to share with you my observations of this year’s crop of trick-or-treaters, to support my opening thesis.
We had teenagers come to our door armed with pillow cases wearing costumes that looked strangely like those I see them wearing everyday at the junior high school. We had kids who took the candy from my hand. Some said thank you. Some, after I plunked a 3-Muskateer Bar in their bucket, whined, “Man, I wanted a Starburst.” One kid said, “Gimme something.” Very few of them actually said, “Trick or treat.” Some were eating the candy on their way down my lawn, leaving a trail of empty wrappers. There were also a few little cuties who welled my eyes with tears: the little two year old giraffe who made the long hike to my door with her dad and looked bewilderingly at me as I dropped a chocolate bar in her sack; and the three year old superman with forties style slicked back hair who said trick or treat and thank you; I told his mom and dad that I felt a lot safer knowing that superman is around. Some, I’m reasonably certain, came back for seconds. And some drove into our neighborhood in vans from who-knows-where, armed with empty buckets and sacks. I kept waiting for the tour bus to show up.
I don’t know about you, but after witnessing this pageant of Halloweeners, I understood the meaning of status quo like I’ve never understood it before; what I experienced today is the true American culture in miniature. Lord have mercy.

Wheels: Part 4

Alas, poor readers, I have been negligent in my writing. Forgive me, but know that more delays will likely occur in the future as I make my way through summer. Here is the final installment of Wheels........


Like all of us, I can recall a few stand-out tales from my early driving experiences, like travelling west on a family vacation. My dad let me have the wheel of our Old’s Cutless Supreme, which would do 40 mph just by taking your foot off of the brake, while travelling in the sticks of Utah. I only had my learner’s permit at the time; and when I got stuck behind a long caravan of wide-load motor homes, I put the blue rocket in passing gear, punched it to 110, and overtook them. During this little maneuver my dad leaned over, glanced at the speedo, and settled back without comment. I figured he was either feeling a sense of pride--thinking to himself, “that’s my boy--”or he was trying to avoid making me nervous. My mother was less cautious saying from the back seat, “Don’t EVEN think I don’t know how fast you’re going.” Or was it, “Don’t even THINK I--” My memory is a little vague on that point.
Growing up in Colorado, where you’re either travelling up or down, the thought of using a manual transmission (I was going to call it a standard transmission, but manual transmissions are no longer standard issue) was, well, terrifying. My father decided I would learn in a white Ford pick-up, circa 1963, that had been used to haul water for the highway department during the first twenty-five years of its tortured life. It had three on the tree without synchronizers, and a clutch the disengaged about the point at which your knee met your chin. So my dad thought it would be the perfect classroom for learning to use the clutch. I think that the term, crucible, works for me better than classroom. Every time we would take her out, I’d pray to make all the lights. But invariably I’d end up in the middle of a string of cars on the mean part of a hill, waiting for the lights to change. I knew I had about three inches and maybe ten seconds grace period to find the engagement point and get up the hill without stalling. Well, after four or five stalls and bevies of honking horns, my dad would quietly go around the truck, ask me to slide over, and get us going again. I’d mutter to myself, “One of us is going down, truck, and it ain’t going to be me!” It must have heeded my threat for soon I was happily double-clutching my way around town.
I loved that truck for what it wasn’t. The tappets, and probably every other part of the engine, were loose. So the engine sounded like a menacing Hemi when idling. One sunny afternoon, my friend and I were sitting at a red light when a tricked-out Camero, complete with a chromium supercharger pushing through its hood, rumbled alongside us. I looked over at the other driver and revved my engine. The Camero, as if impressed, answered back; only its reverberations nearly set us on our side. Unruffled, I dipped deeper into the throttle so as to say, “Who’s your daddy?” At which point the light turned green. The Camero had already sped three blocks down the street by the time my white water truck, whining, sputtering, rattling, and coughing its way through the cloud of dust and exhaust fumes left in the wake of the hot rod, reached the other side of the intersection.
I finally achieved the point in my life where I had the means—at least numerically—to purchase a sports car; so I bought myself a 2002 Honda S2000. The latter was a beautiful piece of machinery. My S2K came in silver with a black interior. The car fit like a glove; one entered it like a fighter pilot does an F-16. I know this because it was winter when I bought the car, and I spent a lot of time getting in and out of it while it sat in my garage. The S2K was nearly perfectly balanced, and had a 2L engine putting out 240 ponies (a record for its day). Its Achilles’ heel was its low-end torque which was just that, low. So the S2K was by no means a drag racer. But it was fast once you took it above 5000 rpm, which it was quite content to do right up to its red-line near 9000 rpm. It was night when I first drove the car out of the show room. The salesman had finished reviewing all the features when I started her up by pressing the red button for that purpose. I turned on the lights and the salesman said, “Whoa.” Neither of us had seen the new halogen lamps Honda had fitted the S2000, but when we did, we realized the car had a soul.
I frequently took my sports car out into the country back roads, where I could run it through its paces; I was a bad boy. My favorite story to showcase the outstanding handling of my S2K recounts the time I took my wife to a rehearsal at church. There is a long sweeping on-ramp to the interstate near our house. I would try to run this as fast as possible by finding the most efficient racing line. With my wife in the passenger seat, I ran the ramp. The optimum line required that I bring the car tight to a wall on the right side—a point I usually reached at a speed of around 95 mph. Then I would shoot across to an opposite curve and over a rise to the last long straight stretch to the highway; at the time of this story I crested the curve at about 110 mph. By the time I entered the highway I reduced my speed to the legal limit, and we cruised sleepy down the interstate until we came to the exit ramp. This particular ramp is a tight circle with a recommended speed limit of 25 mph; I took my wife around the loop at 60 mph. The car stuck like glue even though our stomachs didn’t. Finally, I wound us around to the back lot of the church at 45 mph, and set us neatly into a parking spot, decelerating to zero nearly instantaneously. My wife’s palms were sweating as I, with a broad grin on my face, went around the car to open the door for her. In short, my S2K was a gas.
But not everyone liked the S2000. Even though it frequently bested all the sports cars of its class in track competitions, many preferred the raw power of the vet, or the over-steering of the 350Z. I must admit that I quickly tired of having to apologize for my car’s lack of low-end oomph; especially after weeks of my father-in-law boasting of how his ’65 Mustang convertible handily beat my newfangled foreign sports car off the line. I would eventually sell my S2000 to buy my wife a new Acura TL. The reason was mostly to see my wife’s smiling face as she drives her very own sports sedan; although, it doesn’t take a car to make her smile. But certainly part of the impetus in abandoning my S2K was its lackluster torque. And my realization of this caused me to consider a deeper meaning behind all of these matters automotive.
My experiences with that ol’ truck and my S2000 have taught me something about relationships. Human beings tend to approach each other with a list of expectations. The latter have come largely from outside us; we gather and develop our expectations from the various voices of the media or our friends and family. Our expectations also develop from within us as the outside influences color and shape our fears, desires, insecurities, and alike. All our expectations ultimately converge within us as a formula; and this formula is nearly always self-serving to the exclusion of others. At the outset of a relationship, we tend to assess the other person by plugging them into our formula, and we wait to see if we obtain a favorable outcome. Some fail the test immediately; the number and frequency of such cases is proportional to how exacting our formula is. Others pass the test, some with flying colors; it’s like the computer in our mind, after being programmed with the formula, spits out a response, “Oh, this is the one,” or “strike while the iron is hot,” or “you’re in love, you’re in love, you’re in love.” The trouble is that the data given to this computer are usually cursory at best, and really nothing more than first impressions; like with my ol’ truck or sports car, the factors we judge others with according to our formula are all the sounds, style, looks, and carefully crafted endorsements. It isn’t until we have driven them around the block a few times that we discover how well the performance actually agrees with the image and promises. When we do finally quantify the gap between the two—and the gap is usually large—we become disillusioned and frustrated; and our first reaction is to back out and look elsewhere. This happens because we have based our happiness and contentment on fulfilling our expectations, which, as I said earlier, are ultimately self-serving. So we will never be happy because our expectations will never be satisfied because they are founded on an inherently flawed principle.
The joy I experienced with my white Ford pickup or my Honda S2000 grew out of an appreciation of their intrinsic character, not what I hoped to get out of them. The truck was old, worn, and tired, sure; but the challenges that resulted from this reality engendered a sense of accomplishment that would have been missed had everything been slick and easy. As I met those challenges, I grew increasingly fond of that truck, and looked forward to the next encounter. Its personality, crude yet genuine, got under my skin. I quickly forgot about what it wasn’t as I celebrated what it is. Once I discovered the true nature of my S2000, a whole new world of opportunities, experiences, knowledge, and skill opened up for me that I would have lost had I abandoned it right away for the glamour of something else.
Trucks and cars are machines, of course, and can only be improved to a limited extent by our investment in them--not so with people. We forget that the other person in our burgeoning relationship is also tormented by fears and insecurities, and so carry their own raft of expectations. When we abandon them for failing our formula, we not only forfeit the joy and wisdom that comes from celebrating their real self, we rob them of an opportunity for the same discovery of themselves. When this happens, the expectations in the minds of both parties become increasingly unattainable because they become increasingly self-serving. We will never find what will make us happy, which is never what we believe will make us happy, until we help the other person discover their inherent beauty, value, and strengths.
My life on wheels has been froth with metaphoric overtones. One of the great gifts of walking with Christ is the ability to find wisdom in everything, even the most unlikely places. For this reason we do ourselves a disfavor when we confine our lives to tiny little boxes. Jesus taught us that He is Truth and the Truth will set us free.