This is the first installment of what will be a multi-part series on the issue of infant baptism. As everyone knows, the ground must be tilled before the seeds can be sown, so, to get things going, here is a parable.
Once, there were two flowers who were planted into a garden. This garden was the only place that received water for many miles around. Both flowers were told many things by the Gardener, and one in particular. “If you wish for your seeds to be watered and grow,” He said, “then they must be planted in this garden. If you drop a seed into the earth, I will water it, and that will tell you that it will live. If you do as I command, your offspring will multiply and fill the garden.”
The first flower, when it was ready to seed, dropped its seeds into the ground around itself. Soon enough, the Gardener came with His can, and watered the seeds. They began to sprout. While they were growing, the first flower told them what it had been told about the garden. Soon, they were mature flowers, even more beautiful than the first, and there were many of them.
Now, the second flower heard the gardener’s instructions, but had a strange interpretation. It thought that it had to let its seeds decide for themselves whether they wanted to grow or not. So, it grew up alongside a wooden fence, and when it was time to seed, dropped every last seed onto the hard wood. Then, the flower sat and waited to see if they would fall into the garden or not. But the very next day, the sun came and beat down on the seeds, and they withered. The following day, a hot wind came and blew most of the seeds off of the ledge, into the dry hard earth outside the garden. Those seeds were never watered, and died. Some fell into the garden: but these were few.
Which flower was wiser?
John Ahern scribbles deliriously,
Some storm-tossed sailors have just landed on some coast outside Africa. They’ve just been saved from a gale sent by Juno, who has a thing with these Trojans. Venus, who has a different thing with these Trojans (Aeneas happens to be her son), comes whining to Zeus, calling him out for not keeping his promises to the poor, destitute Trojans. Not particularly worried about pandering to the special interests of lobbyists—he is a somewhat partisan figure himself—Jove consoles Venus, telling her that, in fact, the Trojans’ luck will turn. They’ll settle in Latium and someday have an empire. Bigger than anybody else’s. An imperium sine fine.
Holli Herdeg writes,
Recently, for a course in world religions required by my high school, I had the opportunity to research and write a paper on the Islamic view of abortion– personally, I found it fascinating. As a sort of maiden post, I thought to share it in a set of two parts– at the very least, that’s how many sections I expect this paper to require. We’ll see.
Islam stands with Judaism and Christianity as one of the three great monotheistic religions. Its adherents number over one billion[1] and are spread out across the globe. Known for its conservatism, as the abortion campaign becomes ever more important in the West, the question arises of how Islam views abortion. According to the earliest Islamic tradition—and now, the more liberal factions of Islamic scholars, abortion is permissible before the one-hundred and twentieth day of pregnancy[2], but not after. However, conservative Islamic scholars, upon closer examination of both the Qur’an, the hadiths, and the writings of the imams, have determined that after the implantation of the fetus in the uterus, the potential for ensoulment is enough to place a ban on abortion, save for cases in which the mother’s life is in danger.
Philip Hilton writes,
Reading Proverbs, and comparing the teachings of Christ, one is set a subtle paradox. On the one hand, we appear to have the teachings of Christ which set out for us a hard way of suffering and love as God’s stunning example for humankind, where there is no place for respectable, gentlemanly conduct. On the other hand, we have the way of Proverbs (and, I would argue, the way of the whole OT), a way of wisdom, caution, foresight and most definitely of respectability — with a keen eye towards the will of God for all that. I would like to suggest that the concept of ‘the Righteous Life’ in the Bible is a fluctuating concept, or at least, like a diamond which is turned in the light, one which is shown with different nuance in each new era.
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“At the beginning of life in the natural order is an act of substitution and co-inherence,” says Charles Williams. I’m skeptical that any action can be appraised as good or evil according to some universal system of ethics. Instead, it seems to me that every human relation is either instrumental or sacrificial.
Using someone instrumentally is not evil; there is no abstract universal evil. Sacrificing oneself for another is not good; there is no abstract universal good. Similarly, it is not evil to treat God instrumentally, nor is it good to sacrifice oneself for him (except insofar as it’s probably good for you to sacrifice yourself for God, since we’re told that leads to heaven — though to sacrifice oneself for God for one’s own sake wouldn’t really be a sacrifice at all).
When Jesus exhorts his disciples to love the poor, he does not tell them that it is good to love the poor; instead, he appeals to their relationship with him. “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Despising and using the poor is not wrong, per se; it merely means one does not love Jesus. Loving them is not right; it merely means one does.
Any attempt to follow an ethical system that is not essentially relational is almost necessarily selfish. One often imagines oneself to be doing something good; but there is no abstract universal good. There is good for me and there is good for you. I think we often trick ourselves into believing we are doing something that is objectively good, when in reality we are simply doing something that we believe will make us a good person — an essentially selfish indulgence, and according to Jesus, impossible. “No one is good—except God alone.”
John Ahern writes,
This may be somewhat confusing, since I’ve posted on here before about Classical music being dead and Classical music really being an output of Classical Greece. Using two different definitions of the word Classical about the same issue is hard enough—here, I’m going to add a third. When I say “classical education”, I mean the liberal arts and sciences. Think Dorothy Sayers. Classical and Christian schools. That classical. This is about applying the concept of paideia to music.
In the year 2326 AD, mankind is on the brink of self-destruction. Sub-nuclear weapons, psychotic dictators, mutant toxic waste, lack of national environmental policy reform, etc. A bold and passionate scientist works tirelessly on his secret underground project. Selective human reproduction using specifically selected “breeders” and careful genetic modification. To save the human race. And make it better: perfect, in fact.
The scientist — known to future generations only as Dr. Geoffrey — succeeds before his tragic death (and the subsequent demise of all other human life due to a severe international crisis) in creating two perfect humans: male and female. He names them Leonardo and Kate. They form a natural and chaste bond of respectful affection for one another, and in the ashes of the apocalyptic wasteland, they uncover a KJV 1611 Bible and are moved to live their lives according to its precepts.
Then, in Spring, when the ubiquitous smog seems almost tolerable, and the zombie skylarks twitter their pathetically warped melodies, the pair perform a DIY marriage ceremony in the ruins of New York City. Children follow. More children. Lots more children. The world repopulates to a comfortable and sustainable level. And their children, miraculously, are also perfect.
They are as perfect as perfectly distilled water. Dr. Geoffrey’s genetic tweaks are flawless. All lust, all gluttony, all greed, all sloth, all wrath, all envy, all pride, all gone. These creatures are psychologically deterred from even considering any of them. Their natures are free of sin.
And they live happily ever after. The End.
Are all humans inherently sinful? Can the human affinity for sin be neutralized?
Philip Hilton scribbles,
In this week of Advent, we are all reading the story of Jesus’ birth according to Luke. For some, this may inspire joy, credulity and various levels of inspiration. These chosen mortals can relive the Annunciation, and feel only what they ought to feel — the joy of the coming, the terror of the angel, the solemnity of the presence of the wise men. Unfortunately, I am rather willful, and I have been endowed with a regrettable amount of skepticism, particularly when it comes to the angelic pronouncements.
The church makes up the body and bride of Christ. If one part of the body does something good, the whole body rejoices. If one part of the body sins, the whole body grieves and must bear the responsibility– even the cutting off, if necessary. You can’t cut off a hand you think you never had.
The better an organization/community/form of government/religion is, the more responsibility it bears for its members, the more connected it is. So the Roman Catholic church is at its best when the bishops are denying communion to unrepentant members, and at its worst when nuns are escorts for abortion clinics without being disciplined.
The Protestant part of Christianity starts on the wrong foot by denying responsibility for the rest of the church– somebody asks about the Crusades– “Oh, that was just the Catholics.” (It wasn’t… but that’s a common response). Or the pathetic state of tithing. “It’s not us, it’s those Methodists.” Or what have you.
Atheists, are, of course, the worst. Jumping straight to Godwin’s Law, you can’t compare them to Hitler (or Stalin, etc), because they aren’t affiliated with him. They aren’t affiliated with anyone. Each atheist is essentially an island of his own responsibility.
Christianity is bearing others’ burdens.
John R. Ahern writes in response to Nick Embrey’s latest,
There’s a basic assumption that many make with regard to God, spirituality, and the universe. Aristotle and the ancients believed that the heavens, the spheres of the planets and the stars, were spiritual, as opposed to material. Why do we assume they were not correct?
In other words, if you like St. Thomas’ distinctions, there are two kinds of “substances”—spiritual and material. We assume that modern science, in its discovery of the nature of waves and photons and black holes, has proven that indeed the “heavenlies”, previously imagined to be spiritual, are really just as material as the earth is. Why do we assume this? Why do we assume that angels (if we believe them), being spiritual, are “made of” something completely transcendent and totally separate from the universe? Why is the spiritual necessarily something different and outside of what modern science calls the “material” universe? How do we know Aristotle wasn’t correct?
What was it about the back of God’s head (Exodus 33:12-23)? Is God’s spiritual body bright? Or do we just, like G. I. Williamson, attribute all that to poetic metaphors and say Moses didn’t see the back of God’s literal head, because obviously God doesn’t have a head?
(As always, I should add the disclaimer that I don’t necessarily agree with what I’m saying here. I’m just asking questions. But assuming fundamental things about the universe for unexamined reasons is a dangerous thing.)
