Senior 37: In Pursuit of Perfection
These have been wonderfully rich days--full of interesting classes, meals with friends, dialogues on philosophy, spiritual encounters, enjoyable music, and engaging reading. What with all that, I'm not sure when I'm going to get around to doing actual homework.
A few highlights:
On Tuesday, 09 January 2007, Craig Keen (APU theology faculty) presented a paper entitled, "After Crucifixion: Unhanding Metaphysics in the Liturgy of the Eucharist." It prompted a great deal of thoughtful reflection and questioning about the task of philosophy.
On Wednesday, 17 January 2007, William Lane Craig gave a presentation on "What is eternity? God's relationship to time." I was very pleased to see many friends and some fellow philosophy-majors there.
On Wednesday, 24 January 2007, I met for a prayer meeting with about a dozen other students. We shared a very moving and meaningful time.
Tonight, Friday, 26 January 2007, I attended Chris Bishop's junior tuba recital. He programmed many different, interesting, and enjoyable pieces and performed very well. I'm happy for him, and sad too, because he will be leaving for Australia soon to conclude his studies for a Bachelor of Music degree. We've played together in symphonic band for three years as well as in marching band. I like to think that he had the better ear and overall tone, and I had the better sense of rhythm, and we made a really good team. I'll miss him a lot.
-----
I'm taking an English seminar in Victorian Literature; "Sanity and Madness" is the course theme. It it absolutely fascinating. Our first readings were from Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy. At the beginning of each class, Dr. Noble opens the discussion by asking whether there is "anything to write home about" in the previous nights' reading. After a fashion, I am "writing home" about Carlyle and Arnold. The time in which they wrote was one of great change. Science was progressing at an astonishing rate and, seemingly, had given the lie to traditional (especially religious and spiritual) models of reality. And yet, for all its progress, Victorian England found itself mired in a variety of moral and social crises. Science, which promised so much, was failing to meet that most basic human need for meaning and purpose; the people of that time were directionless. And in many respects, we face this very same tension in the twenty-first century.
I think the following short passage from Culture and Anarchy expresses the situation well:
"Another newspaper, representing... one of the religious organisations of this country, was a short time ago giving an account of the crowd at Epsom on the Derby day, and of all the vice and hideousness which was to be seen in that crowd; and then the writer turned suddenly round upon Professor Huxley, and asked him how he proposed to cure all this vice and hideousness without religion. I confess I felt disposed to ask the asker this question: and how do you propose to cure it with such a religion as yours?"
Science cannot, by itself, solve the problems of the world. And religion seems to have done no good either. Carlyle advocates moving toward a "natural supernaturalism" in which the supernatural aspects of the material reality are realized. Arnold looks to education and the western literary classics for guidance. And while both these approaches bear some mark of truth, I fear that they must ultimately fall short of the goal because they fail to take seriously the fundamentally spiritual nature of the problem and human condition.
This is where true Christianity comes in--the way of Jesus, which is not about either severe legalism (what some understand by "obedience") or unmitigated license (what some understand by "grace"). It is about walking with God in interactive relationship, being transformed into His likeness by the indwelling of His Spirit, moving into a life endued with agape love. Perhaps that sounds too good to be true, or too vague to be practicable. But for those who desire it, God has opened the way and it is accessible to all.
For Church History, I am reading Martin Luther's treatise, "The Freedom of a Christian." Consider reading it--it's very understandable. And, interestingly enough, he says things very similar to Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, two contemporary Christian writers and thinkers who, alike, affirm the accessibility of the way of Jesus and the whole life that follows from that. (Also Oswald Chambers.)
In a world that is so desperately in need of direction, my hope is to come to a place where this is a lived reality in my life and I am able to articulate it for the benefit and advantage of others. I think that I am beginning to understand more clearly the relationship between grace and works. I am more excited about prayer and the other disciplines for the role they play in spiritual formation and life. And I am growing to understand (and more comfortable with) the legitimate place of rigorous intellectual effort and study for the overall Christian life. (That last one may be especially puzzling for the average contemporary lay-Christian; I'll write about that another time.)
That's the journey so far and the agenda for the future.
-----
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
A few highlights:
On Tuesday, 09 January 2007, Craig Keen (APU theology faculty) presented a paper entitled, "After Crucifixion: Unhanding Metaphysics in the Liturgy of the Eucharist." It prompted a great deal of thoughtful reflection and questioning about the task of philosophy.
On Wednesday, 17 January 2007, William Lane Craig gave a presentation on "What is eternity? God's relationship to time." I was very pleased to see many friends and some fellow philosophy-majors there.
On Wednesday, 24 January 2007, I met for a prayer meeting with about a dozen other students. We shared a very moving and meaningful time.
Tonight, Friday, 26 January 2007, I attended Chris Bishop's junior tuba recital. He programmed many different, interesting, and enjoyable pieces and performed very well. I'm happy for him, and sad too, because he will be leaving for Australia soon to conclude his studies for a Bachelor of Music degree. We've played together in symphonic band for three years as well as in marching band. I like to think that he had the better ear and overall tone, and I had the better sense of rhythm, and we made a really good team. I'll miss him a lot.
-----
I'm taking an English seminar in Victorian Literature; "Sanity and Madness" is the course theme. It it absolutely fascinating. Our first readings were from Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy. At the beginning of each class, Dr. Noble opens the discussion by asking whether there is "anything to write home about" in the previous nights' reading. After a fashion, I am "writing home" about Carlyle and Arnold. The time in which they wrote was one of great change. Science was progressing at an astonishing rate and, seemingly, had given the lie to traditional (especially religious and spiritual) models of reality. And yet, for all its progress, Victorian England found itself mired in a variety of moral and social crises. Science, which promised so much, was failing to meet that most basic human need for meaning and purpose; the people of that time were directionless. And in many respects, we face this very same tension in the twenty-first century.
I think the following short passage from Culture and Anarchy expresses the situation well:
"Another newspaper, representing... one of the religious organisations of this country, was a short time ago giving an account of the crowd at Epsom on the Derby day, and of all the vice and hideousness which was to be seen in that crowd; and then the writer turned suddenly round upon Professor Huxley, and asked him how he proposed to cure all this vice and hideousness without religion. I confess I felt disposed to ask the asker this question: and how do you propose to cure it with such a religion as yours?"
Science cannot, by itself, solve the problems of the world. And religion seems to have done no good either. Carlyle advocates moving toward a "natural supernaturalism" in which the supernatural aspects of the material reality are realized. Arnold looks to education and the western literary classics for guidance. And while both these approaches bear some mark of truth, I fear that they must ultimately fall short of the goal because they fail to take seriously the fundamentally spiritual nature of the problem and human condition.
This is where true Christianity comes in--the way of Jesus, which is not about either severe legalism (what some understand by "obedience") or unmitigated license (what some understand by "grace"). It is about walking with God in interactive relationship, being transformed into His likeness by the indwelling of His Spirit, moving into a life endued with agape love. Perhaps that sounds too good to be true, or too vague to be practicable. But for those who desire it, God has opened the way and it is accessible to all.
For Church History, I am reading Martin Luther's treatise, "The Freedom of a Christian." Consider reading it--it's very understandable. And, interestingly enough, he says things very similar to Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, two contemporary Christian writers and thinkers who, alike, affirm the accessibility of the way of Jesus and the whole life that follows from that. (Also Oswald Chambers.)
In a world that is so desperately in need of direction, my hope is to come to a place where this is a lived reality in my life and I am able to articulate it for the benefit and advantage of others. I think that I am beginning to understand more clearly the relationship between grace and works. I am more excited about prayer and the other disciplines for the role they play in spiritual formation and life. And I am growing to understand (and more comfortable with) the legitimate place of rigorous intellectual effort and study for the overall Christian life. (That last one may be especially puzzling for the average contemporary lay-Christian; I'll write about that another time.)
That's the journey so far and the agenda for the future.
-----
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 10:43 PM
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