Notes

New blog locations

2011-04-27T22:34:00.000-04:00

So obviously this blog has not been updated in a long time. That doesn't mean we shouldn't replace it with not one, but two new blogs!

Most of the content of this blog has moved to Propellerhead Musings, where I will try to write opinionated, personal, and theological topics. If you were hoping to find something interesting on Notes, they this will be the blog for you.

Technical topics will be posted to Toddworks, where you will also find my web site for my consulting and teaching activities. Geeks might check this out occasionally, but most normal people will probably find it boring.

New Computer

2007-05-30T17:15:00.001-04:00

Behind me is our new computer.

Is Schrödinger's Cat a Calvinist or an Arminian?

2006-07-12T22:24:00.000-04:00

Romans 9 presents us with a bit of a paradox. Paul clearly teaches in verse 18 that God has mercy on whomever He will, and hardens the hearts of whomever He will. Yet verses 19–24 teach us that we are still responsible for our actions. Election is never presented in Scripture in a fatalistic manner; we retain at least some measure of "free will."

So how do we reconcile God's election with Man's responsibility? One way is to suggest that God's election is based on His knowledge of the choices we will make. In particular, God elects those whom He knows will ultimately choose to follow Christ. Possible evidence comes from Romans 8:29:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

It certainly seems that foreknowledge precedes predestination! Yet there is a snag in the very next verse:

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Here the calling, so effectual that it precedes justification, is contingent upon the predestination. So the only ones that God could possibly foreknow are those whom He first predestined, then called.

I think there might be another way to reconcile predestination with free will, but before we explore it, let us become acquainted with Schrödinger's cat. This classic thought experiment has been described in a variety of ways, but the general scenario is the same. A radioactive atom is placed in front of a particle detector. Over the course of an hour, there is a 50% probability that the atom will decay, emitting a particle and triggering the detector. A cat is placed in a box, along with a canister of cyanide gas, and the detector is connected to the the canister in such a way that if the atom decays, the gas is released, killing the cat. We wait one hour, don a gas mask, and open the box to see whether the cat has survived the experiment. It will either be dead or alive.

The question before us is: what was the condition of the cat before we opened the box? This is not as simple a question as it seems! The cat was dead or alive, depending on whether or not the atom decayed. But the state of the atom is actually a superposition of states of both having decayed, and having not decayed, until an observation pins it one way or the other—many experiments have established this result. The state of the cat depends on the state of the atom, so it too apparently is both dead, and not dead, until an observation is made.

As far as I know, no one has every really conducted this experiment with a cat. But while it is an established physical reality that the atom must be described, prior to observation, as a superposition of states, few people are willing to allow the cat to remain in this condition. And does the cat have a free will in the box?

The Copenhagen interpretation essentially says the state of the cat is unknowable until we make an observation, at which point the "wave equation" collapses. The many worlds interpretation says that alternate universes arise when an observation is made, one with a living cat and one with a dead cat. Then there is the alternate histories interpretation, which is essentially the many worlds interpretation, except that only one actually exists, the "real world." Other interpretations are possible, but the alternate histories interpretation gives us a new way to look at the paradox of predestination and free will.

Suppose, at any point in which we may make a free will decision, multiple universes arise, one for each alternative we may have chosen. Of course, other people are making other decisions, and still other people are experimenting with Schrödinger's cat, so we very quickly get a huge tangled mess of alternate universes. But suppose God gets to choose which one of these is "real." Then the "real" universe has a couple of interesting properties. First, at any given time, its state can be said to have been determined by God. Second, at any given time, it state can be said to have been determined by human free will (to the extent that human free will can affect the universe). For any given person, his or her actions can be said to be the result of his or her own free will, and simultaneously said to be determined by God.

We do not wish to rule out that God can have further interventions with His universe beyond creating it and choosing which of many possible histories is true history. We read in Hebrews 1:3 that:

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

God is involved in His world, both in the breathtakingly mundane aspect of keeping us existent, and in sometimes spectacular miraculous interventions, often as answers to prayer.

Nor has this article touched upon His role in bringing people to have faith in Christ. But beyond such questions, there are a couple of consequences that come from understanding that God can be sovereign over all things, while we retain at least some measure of free will.

First, we grasp the great promise of Romans 8:28:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Whatever happens to the Christian, whether good or seemingly bad, can be seen as the hand of God working our ultimate good. This includes the actions of other people. If someone blesses me, it is the hand of God. If someone curses me or hurts me, that too is ordained by God, though not caused by God, and I learn from this verse that even that hurt will ultimately prove beneficial to me.

Second, we have no ground for passivity. In some way, my future does depend on my decision. Our prayers do make a difference, because God has ordained they will, though the answers may not always be what we are looking for. Our labors are important.

Meditation on the Word of God

2006-03-08T22:44:00.000-05:00

"One of the most underrated benefits of memorizing Scripture is that it provides fuel for meditation. When you have memeorized a verse of Scripture, you can meditate on it anywhere at anytime during the day or night. If you love God's Word enough to memorize it, you can become like the writer of Psalm 119:97, who exclaimed,

"Oh how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long."

Whether you're driving the car, riding the train, waiting at the airport, standing in line, rocking a baby or eating a meal, you can benefit from the Spiritual Discipline of meditation if you have made the deposits of memorization."

"Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life" by Donald S. Whitney, p. 40 - Bible Intake (part 2)

...They shall mount up with wings....

2006-02-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

"He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

Isaiah 40:29-31

Dangers of Blogging: Honor code 42+4

2006-01-25T21:40:00.000-05:00

Having been tagged by Karen, I guess it is only proper etiquette to respond.

Four Jobs You've Had

Teacher's aide
Adjunct professor
Consultant
Systems Programmer

Four Places You've Lived

Milton, New York
High Falls, New York
High Bridge, New Jersey
Troy, New York

Four Vacations You've Taken

Walt Disney World, Florida
Nova Scotia
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Williamsburg, Virginia

Four Vehicles You've Owned

Bicycle
Chevy Celebrity
Ford Escort
Honda Accord Wagon

Four Blogs I Visit and Want to Tag

Here is where the honor code part comes. If you are one of the first four bloggers to see this, then I tag you! Be sure to leave a comment, so that later bloggers know that they are home free. Oh yes, I'll visit (at least once).

Already, not yet: Justification and Sanctification

2006-01-19T22:21:00.000-05:00

One important principle for correctly interpreting many Bible passages is to recognize the "already, not yet" tension. Already, the Kingdom of God has come in Christ. Yet, while we are already "raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6), yet we dwell in "the present evil age" (Galatians 1:4). It isn't that the fulfillment is slowly coming. Rather, it is the overlap of the ages, brought about by the resurrection of Christ. As long as the present evil age remains, we will have this tension.

This tension is often brought forth in discussions of eschatology, the doctrine of "last things". But it has important applicability to our daily Christian lives as well! For instance, we read in Hebrews 10:10:

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Now sanctified means to be set apart for service to God. Since God is holy, one who is sanctified must also be holy.

Yet a few verses later, in Hebrews 10:14, we read:

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Being sanctified? Yes, I realize that not all translations carry this sense the sanctification being a continuing processes, but several commentaries indicate that the Greek tenses do convey this sense, so the ESV tranlation is reasonable. We see here that we are being made fully holy, more fully able to please God. So which is it? Are we already sanctified, or are we being sanctified? The answer is that both are true. From the point of view of the Kingdom, our sanctification has already been perfected, through Christ's offering. Before God, we stand in Christ's righteousness. This is the truth of justification: we have already been
declared righteous before the court of Heaven! This righteousness is the gracious gift of God, earned by the work of Christ alone, and applied to us by faith alone.

Yet, in the present age, from the perspective that most captures our awareness, we have a long way to go! As we read in Hebrews 12:14:

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which
no one will see the Lord.

This pursuit of holiness is what theologians call growing in sanctification. The great truth that the "already, not yet" paradigm brings is the understanding that while we strive to grow in sanctification, yet from God's perspective our ultimate success is already a certainty!

Some Readings on the Trinity

2005-11-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

When we examine the New Testament doctrine of God, we are quickly confronted with a paradox. The New Testament affirms the Old Testament doctrine that there is One God, and only God is to be worshipped. At the same time, we see three divine Persons who enjoy interpersonal relations and are all considered worth of worship: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This paradox is resolved through the doctrine of the Trinity.

Throughout history, people have forgotten that God is our Creator, and it is perfectly reasonable that we are not able to comprehend Him. However, the witness of Scripture is that in some way we can know God, indeed, that in some way we ourselves are in the very image of God. While perilous, we recall:

It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out. Proverbs 25:2

Nevertheless, we must conduct this search with humility, bearing in mind that what we know of God is limited by what He has chosen to reveal of Himself.

The easiest way to resolve the paradox of the Trinity is to deny it in one form or another. Some, following the 4th century arch-heretic Arius, insist that only the Father is rightly called God. By this view, the Son is some sort of created being, perhaps an angel. Arius allowed the Son to be worshipped as a lesser god, but some modern Arians, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, seem to completely forbid the worship of the Son. The Council of Nicea and the Council of Constantinople condemned this false doctrine.

Somewhat along Arian lines, some people view the three Persons of the Trinity as separate beings, joined together by their love for one another. By this view, the term "God" is essentially an "office" held by these three beings. Some have gone so far as to assert that each of the Persons of the Trinity has a separate "body", albeit not physical, but made of "spirit stuff", whatever that phrase means! Yet it is difficult to see how these three beings are not three gods, emptying the assertions of Scripture that there is one God of their meaning. Furthermore, where did these three gods come from? Why three? How do we account for passages where the Father is called "God", in contradistinction to the Son and the Holy Spirit? This "three gods" theory simply does not account for all the biblical data.

A different tact is to agree with Scripture that there is only one God, but to argue that the three Persons aspect is just an illusion. Perhaps God is changing, and the different Persons are just different modes of operation for God? In the 2nd century, Sabellius claimed that God manifested Himself as "Father" under the Old Testament, as "Son" during the life of Christ, and as the "Holy Spirit" during the present Church age. Yet how can one account for the statements like:

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. John 17:5

So this "Oneness" theory also fails to account for all the Biblical data.

Perhaps the earliest theological exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity was by the lawyer Tertullian, in his polemical essay Against Praxeas
This was Tertullian's polemic against "Praxeas", a Oneness teacher in Rome, who had also opposed the Montanists. Now the Montanists were a charismatic group, and some of their prophets were quite out of line, but it seems that much of the opposition to them was because the prophets were challenging the hierarchy forming in the church, and calling for purity. Anyway, Tertullian, himself a Montanist, wrote, "Thus Praxeas at Rome managed two pieces of the devil's business: he drove out prophecy and introduced heresy: he put to flight the Paraclete and crucified the Father." Tertullian's writings, in Latin, largely defined the doctrine of the Trinity in the western (Latin-speaking) portion of the Church, during the days of Roman Europe.

The western Church has always leaned toward emphasizing the Oneness of God. In the eastern (Greek-speaking) portion of the Church, the chief concern was to "not confound the Persons" of God. It was in the East that the Arian heresy arose. Disputes about words, translation difficulties, and a stubborn, prideful unwillingness to listen and understand delayed resolving this paradox in the east, but eventually the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus) formulated what is the historical theological understanding of the Trinity.

In Capadocian theology, it is understood that there is one God, and only one substance (ousia) of God. But there are three Persons (hypostases) within this one substance of God. Now when we talk about a Person of God, the substance of that Person is the totality of the substance of God. This it makes no sense to try to distinguish between the Persons of God based on their attributes. Attributes have to do with substance, so each Person has all the attribute of God. In a very real way, if I have known the Son, I have also known the Father. The Holy Spirit has been sent to dwell within the Church, yet it can be said that the Father and the Son dwell within us.

Nevertheless, there are three Persons. The Persons are distinguished by their relationships between each other. The Father is God ingenerate. The Son is called "begotten" in the Scripture. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father through the Son. These distinctions are expressed in the Nicene Creed, as clarified by the Council of Constantinople in 381.

This leads us to our last point, that of subordination, or a hierarchy amongst the Persons. Origen, who first articulate the idea that the Son was eternally generated by the Father, insisted that the Son was a different substance (ousia) than the Father, and hence subordinate to the Father. As Nicene theology developed, this view was seen as defective. Since Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all the same substance, this can not be the basis of any subordination. Nevertheless, the Scriptures do indicate that the Son is submitted to the Father; that submission is inherent in the very terminology of Father and Son. Thus, we see an economic subordination, where economic refers to an "ordering of a household".

Some additional insights on the Trinity can be found in Jonathon Edwards's essay on the Trinity: An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity Edwards can be hard to read, but he is profound. Edwards argues convincingly for the ontological necessity of the Son as eternally generated by the Father.