In Robert Farrar Capon’s The Third Peacock: The Problem of God and Evil#, chapter one, “Let Me Tell You Why” opens the book like this:

Let me tell you why God made the world.

One afternoon, before anything was made, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost sat around in the unity of their Godhead discussing one of the Father’s fixations. From all eternity, it seems he had had this thing about being. He would keep thinking up all kinds of unnecessary things—new ways of being and new kinds of beings to be. And as they talked, God the Son suddenly said, “Really, this is absolutely great stuff. Why don’t I go out and mix us up a batch?” And God the Holy Ghost said, “Terrific, I’ll help you.” So they all pitched in, and after supper that night, the Son and the Holy Ghost put on this tremendous show of being for the Father. It was full of water and light and frogs; pine cones kept dropping all over the place and crazy fish swam around in the wineglasses. There were mushrooms and grapes, horseradishes and tigers—and men and women everywhere to taste them, to juggle them, to join them and to love them. And God the Father looked at the whole wild party and he said, “Wonderful! Just what I had in mind! Tov! Tov! Tov!”* And all God the Son and God the Holy Ghost could think of to say was the same thing. “Tov! Tov! Tov!” So they shouted together “Tov meod!”^ and they laughed for ages and ages, saying things like how great it was for things to be, and how clever of the Father to think of the idea, and how kind of the Son to go to all that trouble putting it together, and how considerate of the Spirit to spend so much time directing and choreographing. And forever and ever they told old jokes, and the Father and the Son drank their wine in unitate Spiritus Sancti,+ and they all threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other per omnia saecula saeulorum %. Amen.

It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I’m afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or a principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a Trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can.

One slight elucidation, however. It is very easy, when talking about creation, to conceive of God’s part in it as simply getting the ball rolling—as if he were a kind of divine billiard cue, after whose action inexorable laws took over and excused him from further involvement with the balls. But that won’t work. This world is fundamentally unnecessary. Nothing has to be. It needs a creator, not only for its beginning, but for every moment of its being. Accordingly, the Trinitarian bash doesn’t really come before creation; what actually happens is that all of creation, from start to finish, occurs within the bash—that the raucousness of the divine party is simultaneous with the being of everything that ever was or will be. If you like paradoxes, it means that God is the eternal contemporary of all of the events and beings in time.

#The book is out of print but still available as part of a trilogy, The Romance of the Word: One Man’s Love Affair With Theology : Three Books : An Offering of Uncles/the Third Peacock/Hunting the Divine Fox.
*Tov is “good” in Hebrew.
^”Abundant good” or “very good.”
+In the unity of the Holy Spirit.
%For ever and ever.

Meditations upon
Matthew 26:7-16, Mark 14:3-11, John 12:1-8, and Luke7:36-50.

In these descriptions of four very similar events, we see that John emphasizes the fact that Mary was at the feet of Jesus. On the other hand, Matthew and Mark emphasize the anointing of Jesus’ head as with the anointing of a king. Most scholars agree that Luke describes a different event with a different woman. I can imagine a conversation between Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in heaven.

Matthew says to John, “Hey I really like what you did with your account of Mary anointing Jesus.”

“Oh yeah, thanks, you know how it is, inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”

Mark chimes in with, “Yeah, John, but you really emphasized the bit about Mary always being at the feet of Jesus. I wish I had thought of that. We all saw her anoint his head but you also brought out her humility in stooping down, anointing his feet, and wiping them with her hair.”

John replies, “Yeah, I guess that is how I always saw her. She was at Jesus’ feet when he was teaching. She fell at his feet when he came to raise Lazarus. And then she poured perfume on his feet and made quite a spectacle of herself with her long hair.”

At which point, Luke breaks into the conversation and says, “Yeah, she looked a lot like that other woman who wiped Jesus’ feet with her tears. I mentioned her in my gospel record, you know.”

Matthew, Mark, and John chuckle at the doctor and Mark says, “Yeah, good connection Luke.”

John adds, “All those feelings of unworthiness and sorrow wrapped up in both of those events.”

Matthew looks over at the Holy Spirit and says, “Wow, talk about divine inspiration!”

Notes of appreciation to the Vancouver Police from the people of Vancouver.

Click on the picture for a larger image.

I am a mixture of emotions today. I am very happy that the Vancouver Canucks Hockey team gave us such a great season of entertainment. I am thankful that I get to live in the great city of Vancouver. Yes, I did want to celebrate a Stanley Cup victory with my friends in this city or celebrate a great second place showing. I remember other good celebrations where people cheered and spontaneously sang “Oh Canada” on the balconies and streets of downtown Vancouver. I wanted to wave across the street at my neighbours and have them feel joy.

I am sad that anarchists and other people with empty lives have hurt the image of Vancouver. People who think that rioting, or hockey, or alcohol , or marijuana will fill their lives are sadly lost. They do not realize that they have a “God-shaped-hole”# in their lives that is aching to be filled.

A few hours before the hockey game started last night I was thinking about these words by Dallas Willard: “Feelings are, with a few exceptions, good servants. But they are disastrous masters.”* I thought about how many people in Vancouver needed to put a little emotional distance between themselves and the Canucks so that they would avoid being ruled by their emotions. The rioting in Vancouver last night had little to do with hockey but it did have a lot to do with people being ruled by emotions.

We dare not deny our feelings and we dare not be ruled by them. If we identify the underlying condition that gives rise to the feeling we can assign feelings their appropriate place. Then our actions will be guided by “insight, understanding, and conviction of truth” rather than the feelings of the moment. For further understanding of these principles I highly recommend Renovation of the Heart.

#Blaise Pascal coined this concept and C.S. Lewis made it popular.
*Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002, p. 122.

Using the right tool for a task is important. A small screwdriver and a pair of forceps are the right tools for opening up my computer. They work better than an axe . . . especially if I want to be able to close up the computer and use it again. Mathematics is a great tool for describing difficult concepts in physics. In fact much of what is presently being investigated in the area of particle physics can only be described by mathematics. Once a concept is worked out in mathematics it may lead to physical experiments that attempt to prove or disprove a theory. For such experiments one would need another set of tools like a Large Hadron Collider and experimental science. Math and science contribute much to our understanding of the world but they are poor tools for investigating God. They are good tools for investigating how our universe operates but they are poor tools for answering the question of why things exist.

Philosophy and theology use tools of logical discourse and thought experiments to investigate things that are beyond the limits of mathematics and empirical sciences. These tools are well suited to the analysis of questions of origin, ultimate reality, and God. They also require faith.

Francis Collins in his book, The Language of God, realized that,

science, despite its unquestioned powers in unraveling the mysteries of the natural world, would get me no further in resolving the question of God. If God exists, then He must be outside the natural world, and therefore the tools of science are not the right ones to learn about Him. Instead, as I was beginning to understand from looking into my own heart, the evidence of God’s existence would have to come from other directions, and the ultimate decision would be based on faith, not proof. Still beset by roiling uncertainties of what path I had started down, I had to admit that I had reached the threshold of accepting the possibility of a spiritual worldview, including the existence of God.*

We must not fear math and science but we also need not fear belief and faith. They are all tools which, when used appropriately, are well suited to the investigation of reality.

*Collins, Francis S. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. New York: Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster Inc., 2006, p. 30.

In light of recent controversies about hell, I found these words by C.S. Lewis, in his book, The Great Divorce, to be rather helpful.

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.*

In another section of the book the author and his mentor are speaking of a woman, who, being in heaven, appears untouched by the misery of one left behind in hell. The author questions this and his mentor, the great Scottish writer, George MacDonald, responds:

‘Would ye rather he still had the power of tormenting her? He did it many a year in their earthly life.’
‘Well, no. I suppose I don’t want that.’
‘What then?’
‘I hardly know, Sir. What some people say on earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved.’
‘Ye see it does not.’
‘I feel that it ought to.’
‘That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it.’
‘What?’
‘The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs’ should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.’
‘I don’t know what I want, Sir.’
‘Son, son, it must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves. I know it has a grand sound to say ye’ll accept no salvation which leaves even one creature in the dark outside. But watch that sophistry or ye’ll make a Dog in the Manger the tyrant of the universe.’#

*Lewis, C.S. The Great Divorce (fourteenth edition). Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1983, p. 66, 67.
#(Lewis 1983, 110, 111)

Tonight I am in Scotland, the land of my genetic ancestors, the land of my literary ancestors, and the land of my spiritual ancestors. My grandfather’s grandparents farmed in the Aberdeenshire region of Scotland. Driving through that area yesterday I was impressed with how similar it is to portions of Central Alberta where I grew up. If you substitute sheep for cattle, stone fences for barbed wire, and big hills for slightly smaller hills, Great Bend could be a New Aberdeenshire. I guess others thought so too because Alberta is filled with Scottish place names like Nevis, Erskine, Craigellachie, and Banff. We drove through “Keith,” the place, and the clan, from which I received my name.

We drove through Huntly where George MacDonald lived and wrote such literary classics as Phantastes, Lilith, and The Princess and the Goblin. I could see how his great imagination was stirred by the wonder of these hills, valleys, deer, and springs. It was MacDonald’s writing that would inspire writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. This is the land of Robert Burns, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

It is also the land of Eric Henry Liddell, the Flying Scotsman, upon whom I meditated as I went for a run in the hills near Dufftown. Liddell was the winner of the men’s 400 metre race at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris but it was his faith in God and convictions about right and wrong that are most strongly depicted in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire.

And it is the land of Columba and the Celtic Monks. They brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to the fierce Pict people and the murdering clans that lived in this area. They spoke much about the Trinity of God and used simple descriptions of how God was at once both Three and One. Columba came in the sixth century AD and he and his followers had great influence over the land for more than two centuries. Evidence of this influence can be seen in the architecture and art that survives to this day in Scotland.

Today we made it to the windswept North Sea and the Firth of Moray where Bottle-nose Dolphins swim and play. Tomorrow we head on to Inverness. What wonders lie in the highlands beyond?

I am sitting on a rock on the edge of the Pacific Ocean on Galiano Island staring into a tidal pool carved into sandstone. It is completely detached from the rest of the ocean as it is each day when the tide goes out. I am having an E.O. Wilson moment. The pool is approximately 1 meter in diameter, slightly elliptical and about one meter deep. It is teeming with beings. About a thousand minnows in two sizes, crabs, bottom feeding fish, orange starfish, purple starfish, tiny jellyfish, and barnacles; and that is just the fauna. The flora is more diverse, kelp, several kinds of weed I cannot identify, a liver coloured weed with iridescent blue spots that look like eyes staring up at me. Is this the way this weed protects itself from being eaten?

I was at this same spot yesterday just before the tide came in and I wondered how many of these creatures would still be here today. I am surprised to see that all are present and accounted for. I often feel sorry for fish in a fish bowl because they have so little space to swim. But after seeing these fish who choose to live in 2000 litres of water (the mathematically inclined will find themselves wanting to check my calculations) every day, I have no such sympathy. These fish could leave when the tide comes in. They could say, “Let’s swim to Hawaii,” for the equivalent of a piscine weekend. But these are the safe fish, the smart fish who know that, by staying in this tiny pool, they will not end as food in the belly of a baleen equipped grey whale.

I am awe-struck by this tidal pool and feel that I am teetering on the edge of something large and ominous. E.O. Wilson once came to a tidal pool just like this. When he walked toward the pool he was a child; when he walked away he was a scientist.

I stand in shallow water, staring down at a huge jellyfish in water so still and clear that it’s every detail is revealed as though it were trapped in glass. The creature is astonishing. It existed outside my previous imagination. . . . why do I tell you this little boy’s story? Because it illustrates how a naturalist is created. A child comes to the edge of deep water with a mind prepared for wonder. – E. O. Wilson, The Naturalist.

Elsewhere, Wilson describes how he left his faith because he did not find a place for scientists in the church. When he found mystery and awe in nature and looked for ways to explore his world, he found himself alone. The church had lost interest in the mystics who delved into the wonders of nature. How many other small boys and fifty year-old men might lose themselves in a moment like this and teeter into the tidal pool of science. Will there be anyone in the church willing to dive deep with them? Can we love God and love the science of a tidal pool?

Click on images for a larger view.

Photo credit: John Van Sloten.

It has once again become fashionable to have large public debates on issues of science, faith, cosmology, and the God question. I have previously blogged about two recent debates. (Take a look at a previous blog post here and YouTube video here.) I find it interesting and a symptom of our time that we have public celebrities debating these topics rather than professional philosophers. Philosophers tend to be much more precise with their language and write everything in formal papers before debating with each other. They also tend to be less entertaining and more willing to admit they may not know everything.

One thing that is getting lost in such debates is epistemology. Epistemology is concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions: What is knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? How do we know what we know?

In a short book (really more of a long essay) Lesslie Newbigin has written about how we set out to know things and what the limits of our knowledge might be. There are helpful distinctions between “cause” and “purpose.” Many of the debaters of our time would do well to consider these words from Newbigin.

Cause is something that can be discovered by observation and reason. Purpose is not available for inspection because, until the purpose has been realized, it is hidden in the mind of the one whose purpose it is. Suppose that going along a street, we observe men at work with piles of bricks and bags of cement, and we guess that a building is being erected. What is it to be? An office? A house? A chapel? There are only two ways to discover the answer: we can wait around until the work is complete and inspection enables us to discover what it is. If we cannot wait until then, we must ask the architect, and we will have to take his word for it. If the work in question is not the building of a house but the creation and consummation of the cosmos, the first alternative is not available to us. We shall not be present to examine the end product of cosmic history. If the whole thing has any purpose (and of course we may decide, as postmoderns do, that it has no purpose), the only way we can know that purpose is by a disclosure from the one whose purpose it is, a disclosure which we would have to take on trust. There is no escape from this necessity. The modern antithesis of observation and reason on the one hand versus revelation and faith on the other is only tenable on the basis of a prior decision that the whole cosmic and human history has no purpose and therefore no meaning. It is possible to make this assumption, but it is not necessary. The question whether the cosmos and human life within it have any purpose other than the individual purposes we seek to impose on things is one that cannot be decided by observation. If we live with a prior assumption that human life has no purpose; then we shall act accordingly, and there will be no possibility whatsoever of discovering its purpose.*

Is Newbigin right? Have we assumed that the universe is without purpose? If the cosmos and human life within it have a purpose, how would we know that purpose? Does an assumption of a purposeless cosmos affect the way we approach life in this century? Newbigin affirms that indeed there is a purpose and the architect of the cosmos has revealed to us the purpose. We must take it on trust with “proper confidence” and “personal knowledge.” The rest of the essay expands upon these themes.

*Newbigin, L. (1995). Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., p. 57, 58.

Talking with a couple of friends last night I was reminded of a section of Annie Dillard’s amazing book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The book was written while she lived beside Tinker Creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and in it she records her thoughts on the flora and fauna she observes. She speaks of sitting under a tree and considers the activities of life going on beneath her.

The insects and earthworms, moles, muskrats, roots, and fungal strands are not all. An even frailer, dimmer movement, a pavane, is being performed deep under me now. The nymphs of cicadas are alive. You see their split skins, an inch long, brown, and translucent, curved and segmented like shrimp, stuck arching on the trunks of trees. And you see the adults occasionally, large and sturdy, with glittering black and green bodies, veined transparent wings folded over their backs and artificial-looking, bright red eyes. But you never see the living nymphs. They are underground, clasping roots and sucking the sweet sap of trees.

In the South, the periodical cicada has a breeding cycle of thirteen years, instead of seventeen years in the North. That a live creature spends thirteen consecutive years scrabbling around in the root systems of trees in the dark and damp – thirteen years! – is amply boggling for me. Four more years – or four less – wouldn’t alter the picture a jot. In the dark of an April night the nymphs emerge, all at once, as many as eighty-four of them digging into the air from every square foot of ground. They inch up trees and bushes, shed their skin, and begin that hollow, shrill grind that lasts all summer. I guess as nymphs they never see the sun. Adults lay eggs in slits along twig bark; the hatched nymphs drop to the ground and burrow, vanish from the face of the earth, biding their time, for thirteen years. How many are under me now, wishing what? what would I think about for thirteen years? They curl, crawl, clutch at roots and suck, suck blinded, suck trees, rain or shine, heat or frost, year after groping year.

And under the cicadas, deeper down than the longest tap-root, between and beneath the rounded black rocks and slanting slabs of sandstone in the earth, ground water is creeping. Ground water seeps and slides, across and down, across and down, leaking from here to there minutely, at the rate of a mile a year. What a tug of waters goes on! There are flings and pulls in every direction at every moment. The world is a wild wrestle under the grass: earth shall be moved.*

The creation we see is amazing. There is so much more that we never see!

*Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999, p. 97, 98.