God is good and life is in God’s hands, so Scripture teaches and William Shakespeare believed. He knew, Hamlet shows he knew, the pain of life and reasons to doubt Providence. Yet Shakespeare was not just the author of tragedy but of divine comedy. As a Christian, he knew that human history ends in a wedding between God and humankind, punctuated by the tragic mistakes we make and that happen to us. A comedy like As You Like It has profound parts, but... Read more
It is clear then that the essential object of love, or the Beloved, is “whatever.” So said Professor Alfred Geier,* but if we pause and understand, then a life changing truth will result. Over a lifetime Plato reflected on the life of Socrates and discovered a few essential truths about humankind. These ideas have been disputed and those disputes are the footnotes to philosophy.** In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates and the tragic poet Agathon are discussing “love.” What is love? Both realize that there exists... Read more
Philosophy, the love of wisdom, begins in knowing self. This is not the “self-knowledge” of the self-centered person who implodes while gazing inside his own head. Instead, wisdom begins when we see God, nature, and who we are as people and as individuals in the Divine order. So Socrates thought, Plato taught, and God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Socrates’ insight began with a phrase tied to the Oracle of Delphi: know your self. In context there, the supplicant... Read more
Discussion. The dialectic. The Socratic Method. The Way of Jesus. Call it what you wish, but conversation about a good book is long, can be tedious, and appears inefficient. We can go in circles and that can be frustrating. That is how discussion seems, because we do, often, go in circles. If you pick a text that is wonderful, then wandering while you wonder what it means is a natural result This is a waste, if the goal is simply knowing what... Read more
PHAEDRUS: I come from Lysias the son of Cephalus, and I am going to take a walk outside the wall, for I have been sitting with him the whole morning; and our common friend Acumenus tells me that it is much more refreshing to walk in the open air than to be shut up in a cloister.* We left a garden with Eve and Adam and are going to a city with King Jesus. The city is where we must... Read more
Today the New York Times sent me an update on impeachment that said: What Ms. Hill likely helped outline today was the difference between our official foreign policy and the real foreign policy. Fiona Hill is the National Security Council official who, until her departure this summer, was supposed to be in charge of Ukraine policy and advise the president on it. But what we will likely learn from her appearance is that she was largely cut out of it.... Read more
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity. What things should be done with charity? All the things! How should we act? With courage! These two guidelines are biconditional. Christian courage is charitable. Christian charity is strong and courageous. An Obvious Error One mistake with these two virtues is to do one or the other. ”The times demand courage!”says the boor and so they do, but he is... Read more
God bless historical Aksum, the Christian state of Ethiopia. God bless Prime Minister Ahmed of Ethiopia, however imperfect (as all leaders are), for getting the big issues right, an Evangelical in politics. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing justice. Evidently, Beto O’Rourke, floundering in the polls, has gone from moderate Democrat when he wanted to be senator of Texas to radical demagogue when he wants the Democratic Presidential nomination. Beto now hates Evangelicals like Prime Minister Ahmed, but... Read more
Halloween, whatever it was or has become, was delightful when I was a boy. We dressed up, knocked on doors of neighbors we knew, and got candy. Some of the candy was good, actual Snickers bars, some was not so good, the unwrapped kind. Mom threw away the unwrapped stuff out of vague fears of poison, razor blades, or some such. It was in the newspaper, a long form news source in hard copy no more reliable than Twitter that existed... Read more
Professors are not giving sight to the blind, but turning a soul made in the image of God toward the original. This should not discount data distribution and training. Better information and techniques are essential to being effective in life, but do change the fundamental dynamic in a college classroom from guru to guide. The training, practice, and information come from one human soul to another human soul. The college is not (must not) stamp out a series of imitations of the professor, but well... Read more
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