The Likely Story: Science and Explanation (Timaeus)

Last updated on: October 22, 2018 at 6:59 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

The truth is out there, but knowing the truth requires work. That is the delightful labor that God has given people. Even when it comes to the unchanging realm of ideas, numbers, and the Divine we only seem dimly. The shadows of reality, the marvelous material world, are much harder to capture, because they are always changing. Platonism in conjunction with Christianity helped produce and sustain the Scientific Revolution. Platonism made mathematics and mathematical modeling central to scientific inquiry over... Read more

Throwing Pie at the President

Last updated on: October 21, 2018 at 3:55 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Traditions, especially weird traditions, and college programs go together. I have been told there is an Oxford college that commemorates a duck every one hundred years. I shall not check in case this is not true. Perhaps the strangest tradition in the college program at The Saint Constantine School is the ability, once a year, for any student to throw a pie at professors and then at the President. (Tip: the tin plate hurts more than the whipped cream, though... Read more

Eden to Bethlehem (Danielle Hitchen)

Last updated on: October 19, 2018 at 11:14 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

No grandchildren yet, and my children are grownups now, yet I have always loved picture books and board books. The illustrations and the simple wording in the best children’s books can teach adults if we spend time with them. Try it. Stop. Look at the pictures. Consider the words in the light of the picture on the page and think as a little child. This is not a call to childishness. I am fifty-five, not a child. Yet there is... Read more

What caused God? (An Error Explained)

Last updated on: October 18, 2018 at 1:03 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Good Advice from a Good Professor Don’t reject an argument nobody is making. This good advice came from a professor who was explaining that what I thought was a problem in an argument was indeed a problem, but sadly for me this was not an argument anyone relevant to our discussion was making. I had misunderstood what was being said. Clarity ensued and my learning continued! Over time the same professor helped me with a second bit of advice, argue... Read more

The Chosen One Or How To Tell If it is YOU That Will Save Us All (Timaeus)

Last updated on: October 19, 2018 at 10:15 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

“It’s bad luck to be you,” so said a video game on the game death of yet another “chosen one.” You know the type. He is a farm boy and is approached by a princess with a chance to save the day and win gold and the girl. You cannot shoot him, the guards always miss, he wins, because he is “the chosen one.” Luke cannot be killed by Storm Troopers. Frodo is invisible to the orcs. The video game... Read more

Forgetting the Heroes, I like Ike More than Atlantis (Timaeus)

Last updated on: October 17, 2018 at 7:04 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Beat the bad guys and the History Channel will end up talking more about the bad guys than the good guys. Ike may be likable, but he is not Hitler and evidently the Nazis draw viewers more than the Allies. Our Ike is a decent man, no saint, but no blood and soil genocidal maniac. His vices were common, his virtues uncommon. He was a winner, but lacked flair, wearing his uniform uncomfortably and garbling his words. He could not... Read more

An Artificial Controversy (A Guest Post by Dr. Eric Holloway)

Last updated on: October 15, 2018 at 3:42 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

I am (on occasion) asked about design and ideas surrounding design. Some questions are in areas where I have no relevant training and so only a lay understanding of the issues. Fortunately, I can point to friends who help me understand the ideas around design inferences. The following is a guest post by Dr. Eric Holloway. Dr. Eric Holloway received a solid grounding in classical education at the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. Eric continued schooling to complete a... Read more

Ancient Legends (Timaeus)

Last updated on: October 14, 2018 at 10:29 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

A story like Atlantis is not historical, more like the Lord of the Rings than the Gospel of John or Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars. Instead, stories like Atlantis fill in the history we have lost in deep time*. Socrates wants to see the ideal in motion, but history will never give us the ideal. We are broken. History, as the Bible shows, gives us flawed King David. Yet still humankind needs tales, like that of Arthur, to fill the... Read more

The Story: Every Word Is True (Timaeus)

Last updated on: October 14, 2018 at 4:22 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

History matters. There is a central importance to what happened, because what is now is (in part) produced by what happened. That sounds so obvious, that students often ask: “Isn’t everything caused by what was? Aren’t we just a product of history?” Yes. Sort of. What is before is what made what is, but part of what is before are the stories we believed. These stories-great literature, inspired us, moved us, and made us what we are. They are not history, but... Read more

The Great Wave (Timaeus)

Last updated on: October 14, 2018 at 4:15 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Tolkien began writing by being overwhelmed by the great sea wave that swept away Atlantis and so Lord of the Rings was born. So a scholar told me once, perhaps it is true. Certainly Numinor was much like Atlantis . . . Atlantis ends with a great wave sweeping the might of man under the ocean. People have approached me offering me maps to Atlantis when they heard my dissertation was on Timaeus. I looked, because maybe it was the start... Read more