Mind = blown

"...it may be said that the Bible certainly does not proceed on the assumption that the divine decree is inconsistent with the free agency of man. It clearly reveals that God has decreed the free acts of man, but also that the actors are none the less free and therefore responsible for their acts, Gen. 50:19, 20; Acts 2:23; 4:27, 28. It was determined that the Jews should bring about the crucifixion of Jesus; yet they were perfectly free in their wicked course of action, and were held responsible for this crime. There is not a single indication in Scripture that the inspired writers are conscious of a contradiction in connection with these matters. They never make an attempt to harmonize the two. This may well restrain us from assuming a contradiction here, even if we cannot reconcile both truths. 

Moreover, it should be borne in mind that God has not decreed to effectuate by His own direct action whatsoever must come to pass. The divine decree only brings certainty into the events, but does not imply that God will actively effectuate them, so that the question really resolves itself into this, whether previous certainty is consistent with free agency." 

Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 106

Calvinism is not determinism. Men are not robots. Once again, God brings together two seemingly discordant ideas and causes them to work in harmony together.

I'm becoming completely enamored of systematic theology. There are so many nuances but they all come together in such an elegant whole. In it we begin "to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge..." (Eph. 3:18-19)

More art history

Once again, the school year is about grace us with its presence and as I have another art history class this semester, I am reminded of my aforesaid textbook plans. This time, as selfies are the current film-related craze, I would like to honor them here. I hereby subtitle this post, "Memorable 'But First, Let Me Paint a Selfie' Moments in Art History."

Without further ado:

Van Eyck in The Arnolfini Marriage

Raphael in The School of Athens

Velasquez in Las Meninas

Van Gogh...well, this one is more after the fact. Just making sure everybody's paying attention.

Wait...what?

I read therefore I blog

It's been a while since I've really given this blog any serious attention. Sometimes I wonder if this experiment might be over. Other times I compulsively type up rambling posts on strangely-specific topics plaguing my mind and then delete them right away because I'm emoting rather than saying anything worthwhile.

And then there are the days I think about starting over. The further back I read the more cringe-worthy posts I find. After all, there is no arguing with me in my 15-year old infinite wisdom. Maybe I should go for a clean slate? But then my history major half emerges and advocates for historical accuracy and I figure I should keep building on what is already here, just like we in real life add layers (hopefully of maturity) as each year goes by. 

There's also the fact that nobody knows about this. So basically I'm writing to myself. I guess it'd be fun to talk about the ideas with peeps but I like the anonymity too. It's kind of a little joke. Also this habit probably connects to the existence of the embarrassing posts of yesteryear. I have to make sure my acquaintances keep thinking I'M PERFECTLY WELL-ADJUSTED. (See if I write it in all caps that means it's true.)

One instance of foresight I didn't realize I'd appreciate so much: my choice of blog name. I spent at least a year agonizing over what to call this before I ever went through with making it. At the time, I liked "Ex Libris" because I was a manic bibliophile. Midway through college, I find the phrase has accumulated further meaning. Like C.S. Lewis and the medievals he wrote about, the person I am and the ideas I entertain all come from those who came before me. The older I get, the more my debt to my predecessors grows visible. I am fundamentally a collage of the books I read.

So that's why I keep writing here. It gives me the ability to go back and watch the layers build upon themselves. I want to remember the authors who continue to mold me into a better-rounded individual. It's one of the ways that I can see God working through history into my own life.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton

The pietism of America

It looks as if the general consensus is that America, and more broadly, the West, is now a post-Christian culture. Perhaps even a post-religious (in the traditional sense of the word) society. You hear the stories of public prayer being banned in high schools while the same institutions provide rooms for Muslims to practice salat. Fox News cries out in uproar as the Ten Commandments are removed from buildings of state. And while mysticism abounds in pop culture, there is no room for the supernatural in respectable academia.

While I tend to agree with the assessment, I would like to add my own observation. As secular as we seem to be, we are just as religious as we ever were.

In fact, the level of devotion I see around me would make any itinerant evangelist of yore weep for joy. Consistent, undistracted, faithful alliegance to what is held most dearly; fiery opposition when it is threatened.

What am I talking about? All we need to do is watch the calendar.

We westerners remain steadfast to our Judeo-Christian heritage: We worship on the weekend.

The thing that consumes our thoughts, that gets us through the workweek, that brings us the most happiness is the thing we instinctively turn to as soon as we have a spare moment.

Sleep
Friends
Family
Good food
Bad food
Hobbies
Sports
Entertainment
Culture
Pleasure in all of its various forms

Tradition

Christ?

Rabbit trail theology

My honors class is studying Pietism and Puritanism in the seventeenth century, so we recently read Pia Desideria. I thought this was an insightful passage on the need for the right motives in studying theology:

"When men's minds are stuffed with such a theology which, while it preserves the foundation of faith from the Scriptures, builds on it with so much wood, hay, and stubble of human inquisitiveness that the gold can no longer be seen, it becomes exceedingly difficult to grasp and find pleasure in the real simplicity of Christ and his teaching. This is so because men's taste becomes accustomed to the more charming things of reason, and after a while the simplicity of Christ and his teaching appears to be tasteless. Such knowledge, which remains without love, "puffs up" (1 Cor. 8:1). It leaves man in his love of self; indeed, it fosters and strengthens such love more and more. Subtleties unknown to the Scriptures usually have their origin, in the case of those who introduce them, in a desire to exhibit their sagacity and their superiority over others, to have a great reputation, and to derive benefit therefrom in the world. Moreover, these subtleties are themselves of such a nature that they stimulate, in those who deal with them, not a true fear of God but a thirst for honor and other impulses which are unbecoming a true Christian. When people are practiced in such things they begin to have great illusions and introduce them at once into the church of Christ, even if they know little or nothing of the one thing needful, which they hold in little esteem. They can hardly be kept from taking to market what gives them the most pleasure, and they generally concentrate on something that is not very edifying to their hearers who are seeking salvation." (p. 56)

In which I offend all

Hello peep(s),

I return to the blogosphere with this eye-opening conclusion drawn from my current American history class: The American colonists were the original conspiracy theorists. Ok, so there were conspiracy theories before this point in history, but my statement would be a little less interesting if I acknowledged that, now wouldn't it be? The Americans made it a trend.

First, there's the Salem Witch Trials. Do I even need to elaborate on this one?

Next, there's the whole pre-revolution fiasco. Here I'm going to sound very unpatriotic. As Lemony Snicket said, you still have time to stop reading if you're afraid this will disturb you.

Still do.

Stop. Do it.

Ok, you were warned, my social conscience is clear. The way I understand it, the whole time period between the French and Indian War and the 1770's is pretty much a cycle of bad communication:

• The British try to run their empire more efficiently by passing seemingly innocuous bills.
• The Americans see red and convince themselves and others THAT THE BRITS ARE OUT TO GET THEM AND DESTROY THEIR WAY OF LIFE AND MAKE THEM INTO MEDIEVAL SERFS OMG TYRANNY!!! And you think I'm exaggerating.
• The Americans react and pass a bill in a colony's legislature declaring parliament's jurisdiction in the colonies illegal, or, more snazzily, dump a bunch of tea into a harbor.
• The British re-react and pass a more stringent series of "Acts," turning the whole thing into a power play, so, the Americans having created a self-actualizing prophesy, the cycle repeats itself.

Two concessions: Yes, the Americans should have had representation in order for the system to work, and yes, the British did hypocritically do a few things in the colonies that were illegal in Britania itself (I.e. 2nd Quartering Act). But the latter was after the Americans had almost driven them to it - they had to maintain control of their empire otherwise the whole thing would fall apart and actually endanger their lives. Beyond that, the tariffs the Americans had to pay were already in place in the rest of the empire, including the homeland of England herself. What was so special about that part of the empire that made them exempt?

Dare I say it? The colonists were being a liiiiiiitle bit dramatic. Rule #1 of history: Don't trust the propaganda. Case in point: The Boston Massacre, the name of which is even an exaggeration. Look it up, it wasn't what the revolutionaries made it out to be. But if Paul Revere had depicted the "snowball fight" and they'd just called it "The Butt-Kicking Several Smart Aleck Teenagers Got For Taunting An On-Duty Soldier," they probably wouldn't have gotten as many outraged people to join their cause. My reaction to them is fairly similar to the one I have when listening to the Fox News pundits pontificate on Obama's not-so-hidden communist agenda for absolute control of America. Really?

From here, we Americans perfected the art of conspiracy theorizing: JFK's assassination, the moon landing, the 9/11 Truthers....the list goes on and on. 

In the case that some of this information is less than factual, well, maybe there's a conspiracy amongst my professors.

Or maybe I just want you to think that.

Give me an inch, I'll take a mile

So that in venturing ill we leave to be
The things we are for that which we expect;
And this ambitious foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
The thing we have; and, all for want of wit,
Make something nothing by augmenting it.

(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, lines 148-154)

Lately, God has made me very aware of how easily this can take root in someone. I've been given many things I've wanted, but the knowledge of this, rather than making me grateful, fixates instead on how much more I think I could have gotten. All of the sudden, the pretty lavish gifts I've been given start to look shabby.

So I'm learning new habits. For every complaint, there are ten reasons to be grateful. God sticks with me no matter what. He can never disappoint me, because He is exactly as beautiful as He seemed at first. In fact, He keeps on turning out to be better - so far He is from disappointing, He only further amazes.

This Thanksgiving, God is enough.

The Puritans do it again

"He told me that being himself, in the time of his youth, a student at Cambridge, and having heard much of Mr. Rogers of Dedham, in Essex, purposely he took a journey from Cambridge to Dedham to hear him preach on his lecture day. And in that sermon he falls into an expostulation with the people about their neglect of the Bible [I am afraid it is more neglected in our days]; he personates God to the people, telling them, "Well, I have trusted you so long with my Bible; you have slighted it; it lies in such and such houses all covered with dust and cobwebs. You care not to look into it. Do you use my Bible so? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer." And he takes up the Bible from his cushion, and seemed as if he were going away with it, and carrying it from them; but immediately turns again and personates the people to God, falls down on his knees, cries and pleads most earnestly, "Lord, whatsoever thou cost to us, take not thy Bible from us; kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us thy Bible, only take not away thy Bible." And then he personates God again to the people: "Say you so? Well, I will try you a little longer; and here is my Bible for you, I will see how you will use it, whether you will love it more, whether you will value it more, whether you will observe it more, whether you will practice it more, and live more according to it." But by these actions [as the Doctor told me] he put all the congregation into so strange a posture that he never saw any congregation in his life. The place was a mere Bochim, the people generally [as it were] deluged with their own tears; and he told me that he himself when he got out, and was to take horse again to be gone, was fain to hang a quarter of an hour upon the neck of his horse weeping, before he had power to mount, so strange an impression was there upon him, and generally upon the people, upon having been thus expostulated with for the neglect of the Bible." 

Thomas Goodwin on John Rogers, recorded by John Howe

I don't deserve my Bible.

Ode to sleep deprivation

There is a very simple explanation for why I haven't blogged lately. I've been sleeping.

Of the many things I learned this past year, probably the most significant was the the average college student's remarkable ability to thrive on a frightening level of sleep deprivation. Oh the stories that come to mind....

• The time we all stayed up till 4AM on a school night when three of us had an 8AM class in....if you didn't catch that....4 hours. Ahh. We three souls met up on our ways to our respective classes that morning, and what a sight it was. We truly looked and acted like we had been partaking in illegal substances. Everything was JUST SO FUNNY. And then, that night, we had another party.
• The night I literally stumbled out of the administration building, due to high levels of exhaustion. Good thing I didn't drive.
• Then there was that other night a big snowstorm hit Milwaukee. This was when the rest of my family was in Florida and I held down the fort for two weeks. I had been at school all day. After a few of our late night shenanigans, in which we blissfully ignored the fact that my driveway was likely covered in at least a foot of snow because of more pressing issues at hand such as sitting in a conference room with the lights out discussing horror movies, I decided I must face the inevitable. Somehow, I managed to bribe two of my friends with the promise of a grocery bag of junkfood and a French baguette to come over and help me shovel my driveway at 3 in the morning. My driveway has never been cleared that quickly. After that, we sat around my kitchen table and feasted. What a great night. A week or two later, it happened again, and I got even more people to come. Looking back, I think the key is calling it a "party." (This pretty much works with anything: "Hey guys! Study party at 9!" will definitely get you a few people, plus a snack or two.)

photographic evidence

• Finally, I distinctly remember a day when two of my friends and I were sitting around at lunch, and we discovered that the number of hours of sleep between the three of us the previous night still did not add up to the full 8 hours recommended for adults. That one was impressive.
  

How does this happen, you ask? Here is a textbook example. It's 8pm and you've gone all day eating nothing but whatever free food you were able to scavenge, which doesn't amount to much. You and your friends spend several hours complaining about said collective hunger, arguing over what to get and who should buy, and blowing off homework. Finally, since nobody wants to walk anywhere because it's 45 degrees out and raining, you all agree on the staple of college diets, the pizza delivery. Then follows more arguing about what kind of pizza to get and how much. Finally, the pizza is ordered, under your own name, which your friends take advantage of by including in the "extra instructions" section the request to "tell me I'm beautiful." Finding out about this, mortified, you begin arguing again over who will actually answer the door. By the time the pizza guy gets there, it's after midnight and after another friend of yours shows up, everyone listens as the pair who answered the door tell about the awkward delivery guy:
"I guess I'm supposed to call you pretty. And you know what, you are!"
Then comes the feasting, in which several of you eat an astonishing amount of pizza, followed by reminiscing about the year spent together, because it's late at night at the end of the semester and everyone is getting nostalgic. Here you all realize that before you all leave, the world will not be able to continue spinning unless you go visit the courtyard together that you hung out in as a group for the first time back in Fall. So dropping everything, you file out into the said courtyard, running around in the rain and jumping in mud puddles. Because that's what mature adults do. When all is said and done, it's almost 2 in the morning and people are starting to fall asleep, even though most of you still have homework to finish. That, reader, is how we are beguiled of our sleep.

Anyways, when living in an environment in which 6 hours of sleep is a luxury, collapse is inevitable. By the end of the semester, you and your friends begin to have long, serious discussions eulogizing sleep. It's all you can think about. When summer break arrives, it is inaccurate to call it "summer vacation" as "summer hibernation" is what best describes it. So before my paper-writing skills begin to atrophy, I thought it best to resurface here and entertain myself you with relevant stories from college. Only a few more weeks before new ones start rolling in.....

Under the sun

"If, at mid-day, we either look down to the ground, or on the surrounding objects which lie open to our view, we think ourselves endued with a very strong and piercing eyesight; but when we look up to the sun, and gaze at it unveiled, the sight which did excellently well for the earth is instantly so dazzled and confounded by the refulgence, as to oblige us to confess that our acuteness in discerning terrestrial objects is mere dimness when applied to the sun. Thus, too, it happens in estimating our spiritual qualities. So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect on what kind of being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity."

 (Calvin's Institutes, 1.1.2)

Not exactly a day-brightener, but an important thing to keep in the back of my mind when I'm tempted to go off and apotheosize myself. Not that that ever happens.....