Tuesday, June 28th, 2005
The Supreme Court issued two muddy Ten Commandments rulings this week, but what I want to talk about now is the muddiness of some who wish to see the Ten Commandments displayed.
What caught my eye while I was watching the ruling on TV was the way the text of the Commandments was treated. "I am the Lord Thy God...Thou shalt have no other Gods Before me." For me, the placement of the ellipsis, the "...", was significant. The dots stand for left out words. No doubt the words were left out in order to make the Commandments more relevant to us. No doubt. But are these words that can be left out? And if not, do they have implications for the display of the Commandments?
The missing words are "Which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exodus 20:2). Modern students of ancient covenants call such a line the historic preamble. The party giving the law gives his history with the parties receiving it. The preamble is not just a collection of pretty words. The preamble establishes the kind of relationship that grounds the law.
So God is saying that the Commandments are given by him to those whom he brought out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. This creates a specific audience for the rest of the commandments. The "thou" in the "thou shalt" or "thou shalt not" refers to those brought out of Egypt.
Imagine how the preamble might have been different. "I am the Lord thy God who rules over all the nations. Thou shalt..." The audience would have been different. Then the commandments would have been true everywhere and always.
The difficulty we have with the preamble is that we are used to thinking of ethics as being a transcendental truth. Something we see by means of reason. And to a degree, the Bible even affirms this. "When the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the works of the law written in their hearts..." (Romans 2:14-15a. Okay, I myself used ellipsis here. But I think to a better end. Mostly because I think 15a explains 14.).
Now the question is, if we are a Gentile nation with a high percentage of Christians in the populace, what is the relationship of our civil law to the Ten Commandments?
Some would claim that it is direct. Since the Ten Commandments are the basis of all law, they should be considered the supreme law of the land. But consider. Have we chosen to make "Thou shalt not covet" a punishable offense? Did the Israelite theocracy ever do that? Even in ancient Israel, there was a difference between the Ten Commandments and the civil law. You have to go elsewhere in Exodus and the rest of the Torah to find the punishments for offenses against the commandments.
I think this distinction between Commandments and civil law to be instructive. God Himself seems to see a distinction. The punishment for coveting is a punishment left to God.
So not all the Commandments admit of being made into civil laws. And the Bible seems to recognize some authority in governments established apart from reference to the Commandments. (Romans 13 suggests this.) By apart from reference to the Ten Commandments, I mean that whenever the laws were made, they probably did not have a Torah open when they made their laws. They used the light of reason. They used the law as it was written in their hearts as the basis of civil law. And they were right to do so.
We are in a little different of a spot, being the recipients of divine revelation. We see that the law written on our hearts or our non-Christian neighbor's heart can be used as a basis for law. But we also have the Bible as a standard against which we can check the answers. It's kind of like math. We have a method for deriving answers such that we don't need a set of given answers. But we are also prone to mistakes. We have the official answers to some questions. We would be foolish not to cite them. But at the same time, the others who do not recognize the revelation know something about the law written on their hearts. Our best course is to continue to persuade using arguments they can see apart from accepting the Bible.
The universalizing of the Ten Commandments has some religious dangers that people may not be aware of. It ignores the covenantal nature of the law. To suggest that the Ten Commandments have the same value for all time is anti-Christian. St. Paul says that the old covenant was a "ministration of death, written and engraven in stones" (2 Cor. 3:7). And he says that the glory of that covenant was being abolished. He calls it a ministry of condemnation. But of the new covenant, he says that it is a ministry of the spirit, with an excelling glory.
Why should we be so intent on getting our government to set up monuments to a ministry of death? Will it do people good? St. Paul says that in the reading of the old covenant, a veil is over the listener's minds (2 Cor 3:14-16). But that when they turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Without the gospel, people misunderstand the intent of the law.
To ignore the covenantal structure of the law is to invite mayhem. Martin Luther wrote a tract called "How Christians Should Regard Moses" when the people started reading the Old Testament and attempted to put it into practice without regard to context. They wanted to go out and slay the Amalekites. "But there weren't any Amalekites in Germany," you say. When people didn't find literal ones, they spiritualized the target. Without spiritualizing the injunction. Bad idea. Luther said that we must pay attention to who is addressed when we read the Bible. This goes against much Sunday School teaching of "What does it mean for your life?" when that question is asked with the assumption that everything applies as directly as possible.
I am thankful that the Supreme Court has given us an opportunity to discuss this matter. I wish that more Americans knew the Ten Commandments. But I don't think that we should be so automatic in thinking it is right to post the Commandments everywhere, especially without more context.
How interesting would it be if this conversation were instead about lines from the New Testament. With ellipsis. People would be more sensitive to context if the Scripture in question was "..., where are thine accusers?...Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." (The convict would feel like he was free to leave the courtroom. God said so. "But did he say it to the convict?" Did he say the Ten Commandments to us?
11:53 am Pacific Standard Time
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Saturday, June 25th, 2005
In logic, there are two kinds of statements. First there are analytic statements, which have to do with definitions. An example of an analytic statement is "All bachelors are unmarried." You don't have to go door-to-door to discover this. You can check a dictionary. The definition of a bachelor is that he is an unmarried man. An example of a synthetic statement is "George Washington was the first President of the United States." That statement is neither true nor false by definition. You cannot tell from the meaning of the word "President" itself ("an official chosen to preside over a meeting or assembly") that George would be one, if you didn't know his history. You must appeal to facts or evidence to know that. (You must look to history to find that George Washington was chosen to Preside over the United States.) In any case, synthetic statements require appeals to facts.
Some rationalists claim that there is a kind of synthetic statement that we can know to be true without an appeal to evidence. That is a synthetic a priori statement. In a synthetic a priori statement, we know that something is a fact, without any appeal to evidence.
Tonight, I got into a discussion as to whether the statement "Guys like long hair" was a synthetic a priori statement, or an analytic statement. (My friend and I were clear that this was not a mere synthetic statement, where it may be true or not true, depending on evidence.) Some would argue that this statement is the one example of a synthetic a priori statement. That is, we know for a fact that all guys like long hair before we poll all guys. However, I still think that the analytic/synthetic distinction holds. The statement that "All guys like long hair" is an analytic statement. It defines guys. If you find a so-called guy who does not like long hair on a woman, he is not a guy.
8:20 pm Pacific Standard Time
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5:36 pm Pacific Standard Time
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I don't think I've been tagged for this one, but here goes, anyway:
Imagine that a local philanthropist is hosting an event for local high school students and has asked you to pick out five to ten books to hand out as door prizes. At least one book should be funny and at least one book should provide some history of Western Civilization and at least one book should have some regional connection. The philanthropist doesn’t like foul language (but will allow some four-letter words in context, such as expressed during battle by soldiers). Otherwise things are pretty wide open. What do you pick?
(1) one book must be something you're a bit embarrassed to admit is on your favorites list,
(2) all books would be suitable for adults and
(3) one book changed the way you look at the world.
Funny
1. Lake Wobegone Days by Garrison Keillor
Some History of Western Civilization
2. Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer
Regional
3. The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
Embarrassed
4. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
Changed How I Looked at the World
5. The Winds of War by Herman Wouk (because I felt I had experienced it from the inside)
6. The Quantum Brain by Jeffrey Satinover
7. The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
8. Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Other
9. Collected Poetry by Dylan Thomas
10. State of Fear by Michael Crichton
2:28 pm Pacific Standard Time
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Thursday, June 23rd, 2005
Today is a bad day in the history of Supreme Court decisions. An ACT of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation
The subject is eminent domain. I was nine years old when I first heard about the law. It was a Sunday morning, and the family was out to brunch at the Huntington Harbour Beach Club with my aunt and uncle. My uncle described how the government "had the right" to take people's land away from them. My response was "No they don't!" I was livid. And I was giving a different meaning to "had the right" than my uncle was giving. He meant legal power. I meant transcendental right and wrong.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against transcendental right and wrong.
In one sense, it is an easy guess as to who are the five justices and who are the four. Yet in another sense, there is an irony to it. The left is often said to be the ones who are on the side of the little guy against the evil corporations. But today we see that it is not true. The worst errors in our culture are committed by so-called Republican businessmen who take advantage of legal conditions that were made possible by the collectivism of the left.
I don't even care to go into all the details of this. It is so dark. Think of all the lives that will be destroyed because five justices preferred the idea of economic progress to impartial justice.
On a brighter note, however, we can hope that we get some new justices who will reverse the decision. Today we can take some comfort in the fact that the four justices who lost wrote a dissent that should be famous for all time. I quote the beginning:
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE,
JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights was
ratified, Justice Chase wrote:
contrary to the great first principles of the social com-
pact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legis-
lative authority . . . . A few instances will suffice to
explain what I mean. . . . [A] law that takes property
from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and
justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with
SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed
that they have done it.
Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).
on government power. Under the banner of economic
development, all private property is now vulnerable to
being taken and transferred to another private owner, so
long as it might be upgraded i.e., given to an owner who
will use it in a way that the legislature deems more bene-
ficial to the public in the process. To reason, as the
Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting
from the subsequent ordinary use of private property
render economic development takings 'for public use' is to
wash out any distinction between private and public use of
property and thereby effectively to delete the words 'for
public use' from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amend-
ment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent.
You can read the full text of the majority opinion and the dissents here.
11:12 am Pacific Standard Time
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Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005
 |
You scored as Martin Luther. The daddy of the Reformation. You are opposed to any Catholic ideas of works-salvation and see the scriptures as being primarily authoritative.
Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
1:26 pm Pacific Standard Time
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I got tagged by John Halton. I cheated a little and added question 4 1/2 myself. But it may make things interesting.
1. How many books do you own?
Not sure of the number. They fill eight bookcases of 5-6 shelves each, and then there are some in the hall closet. I've pared them down in the past. When I look at the ones that are in the closet, they are not the "unimportant books" and I always think, "These belong on the main shelves." But they don't fit.
2. What was the last book you bought?
For myself, Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior
I also received No Passion Spent
3. What was the last book you read?
The last book I finished was Animals in Translation
4. What are some books that have meant a lot to you?
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
At the age of eight, I had tentatively decided to put all religion on the back burner because I would never be sure I believed strongly enough to go to heaven. After a good dose of Narnia, I thought, "If God is like Aslan, I think it will turn out okay."
The Winds of War
I read these in high school. I felt like I had lived through World War II after I read them. The characters were great, the settings interesting, and the research compelling. The miniseries based on the first book was good. But the second did not translate so well to television.
Luther's Works, volume 37
Luther's writings on the Lord's Supper. I was a Zwinglian when I read it. Or perhaps somewhere between Zwingli and Calvin. Luther challenged me at a very deep level with the works in this volume. And it was an entertaining read, too.
The Everlasting Man
When Lewis and Chesterton do the same kind of apologetics, I think Chesterton is the better writer. (This is not to say that I think Chesterton is better overall.)
The Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
Atlas Shrugged
An amazing novel. I love the scene where Dagny Taggert buys the Reardon metal bracelet off of Lillian Reardon. Oh, man. Or where Francisco D'Anconia is working on an engine and some academic says to him, "You should be spending your time exposing yourself to the culture of the world," and he answers, "I am."
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
How a medium like television transforms whatever it touches. Postman made me long for the world of the "typographic mind."
Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America
Nine hundred pages, and not one page is boring. This book explains how immigrants to America from Britain came from four distinct cultural regions, and settled in four distinct regions in America. Puritans, Quakers, Cavaliers, and Backcountry Folk are described. From what the horse says in each location, to how the backcountry people (like President Andrew Jackson) got their brides by abduction, to how people would name their kids, to how the understood Freedom. A great read.
Theology of the Lutheran Confessions
Answers some question Walther tends to leave unanswered. And shows his dependence on Melanchthon more clearly, so that you know you're really Lutheran if you agree with him.
Also Iron John
4 1/2. (My own question) What are your favorite Introductions you have read?
Ayn Rand's Introduction to Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three
C.S. Lewis's Introduction to St. Athanasius's On the Incarnation
Robert Alter's Introduction to his own Genesis: A New Translation
5 Tag! You're it:
Chris Williams, Demosthenes21, wild boar, Theophorus, and Monergon
10:42 am Pacific Standard Time
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Friday, June 3rd, 2005
This morning, as I went from link to link on Pope Benedict XVI to find out what he has been up to in the early days of his reign, I ran into an article by Hal Lindsey on the prophecies of the 12th century St. Malachy. As I read, I found exactly what it was that bothered me about such prophecies.
Saint Malachy prophesied that there would be 112 Popes from his time until the end of the church. According to Lindsay, scholars have documented how each pope fit the brief description given by Malachy. On the face of it, this is impressive. Yet when we look more closely, we find that anybody could be made to fit. In fact, we don't have to work to do this. Hal Lindsay has done it for us!
Pope Benedict the 16th correlates to the 111th pope on the list, who is described by Malachy as "The Glory of the Olive."
But before the election, Hal Lindsay offered several speculations. He could be from the Benedictine order since they are known as the Olivetans. He could be from Africa, a continent symbolized by the olive tree. (Arinze was a favorite candidate, and was from Africa.) Or perhaps since the olive tree is a symbol of the Israelites, the pope could be a converted Jew like Cardinal Lustiger of Paris. Lindsay found three different ways to fit major contenders into the description. If the description could match many different men, then the description doesn't really "match" anyone, in the sense of helping to predict who it will be.
This is almost as general as saying a particular pope would have blue eyes. We would all recognize that half the population was covered, and figure this was a carnival trick. But it is not quite so specific as that. It is more as if someone were to say the pope would have a blue gaze. Then it could fit any blue-eyed candidate. Plus any brown-eyed candidate who was born near an ocean. Or who seemed particularly spiritual ("His eyes are on the heavens and not the earth.").
The last pope is supposed to be Peter the Roman. That's going to be a hard spot to fill, isn't it? Let's see. Of every pope, it is said he fills the chair of Peter. And where is that chair? In Rome. We can safely predict that "Peter the Roman" will describe the next pope, as it would have described all the others since the prophecy was made.
Some of what I'm doing here is of a debunking nature. And that is not my usual stance towards things. I think in many cases, it takes a while to digest material to know whether it is good material or not. My reading is not really a refutation of Malachy's prophecies. But it is a refutation of the Hal Lindsay reading of the same. The trouble comes when we read prophecies primarily as a foretelling of the future that tells us important information about the times we are heading into. We find quickly that prophecies of this sort can make us certain of nothing. Even if Malachy's vision were a true one, his descriptions are such that he alone knew what they meant.
Some will say that the earlier prophecies were more specific. Perhaps. Or perhaps the document, which was not published until 1590, and which was not mentioned by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in his biography of Malachy, was written after many of these popes lived.
Even if we were to grant for the sake of argument that such a prophecy was true, we would not know who would be pope at a given time. "But we at least know that the next pope is Peter the Roman!" No, we don't. If we see a couple more popes, people will go back to the drawing board and figure out why this or that pope really wasn't on the list. They may decide that only prominent popes were listed.
The trouble with the list is not that it is necessarily false. The trouble is that it is not useful for helping us to determine anything about the popes. Lindsay shows us that we cannot even use it to choose among the chief contenders. The trouble is that the prophecy really does nobody any good. If the history I have read is correct, the original prophecy was meant as a comfort to a reigning pope. If so, perhaps it was useful to him alone. To the rest of us, it is at best a curiosity.
When the 113th pope after the prophecy begins his reign, I wonder what people will be saying.
It will be funny if Hal Lindsay is the only one trying to explain how the list is still a good one. "Rebunking" seems to be his hobby.
12:00 pm Pacific Standard Time
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Wednesday, June 1st, 2005
I don't know how far the news of our local landslide has reached. But the Bluebird Canyon landslide is about a mile from St. Paul's Lutheran Church of Laguna Beach where I attend. (We're further up the hill.) The church property is outside the zone where the sliding has occurred. And we had a geotechnical survey recently that said we were on good rock.
But the news was strange to watch. I recognized houses I was seeing on TV. I drive past them on the way to church. I have even coveted a few of them!
Say a prayer for the community near our church. Mostly that God's mercy would be seen. That no lives would be lost. That homes that are in a precarious position would be spared. That those who have lost their homes would not be destroyed by this. Even that people's pets would find their way to their owners, if you are willing to pray like that. I am.
I could write a short meditation on Providence. But I had better not. When I watch the news I alternate between Schadenfreude when I just see a cold-looking house crack in two with no human being around, and bleeding-heart sympathy. I know that neither sentiment probably allows me to see things as they are or to know how to pray. So I would rather assume the Providence is hidden, at least to my own eyes, and just leave it to God to know what is best for those who have been put in a difficult spot.
10:14 pm Pacific Standard Time
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