I’m putting together some materials for a small group that will be studying 1 John. Here’s a wonderful quote from Augustine, found in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume that includes the Johanine epistles:
This book is very sweet to every healthy Christian heart that savors the bread of God, and it should constantly be in the mind of God’s holy church. But I choose it more particularly because what it specially commends to us is love. The person who possesses the thing which he hears about in this epistle must rejoice when he hears it. His reading will be like oil to a flame. . . . For others, the epistle should be like flame set to firewood; if it was not already burning, the touch of the word may kindle it.
From the obituary of Janet Brown, famous proprietor of a New York fashion botique that catered to the very wealthy, in today’s New York Times: “At an early age Ms. Brown showed an aptitude for shopping.”
Well. There’s hope for all us dads of preteen girls yet.
Last week I had a good converstation with a friend who is a Christian but who is skeptical of ID. My friend has strong social science training and feels that ID cannot be classified as “science.” One of his principal arguments is what I’d call the “pragmatic” argument: “science,” defined broadly as methodological naturalism, has produced many useful things; detecting design is not likely to produce such useful things. If we assume naturalism, the argument goes, we don’t stop inquiring about a natural phenomenon merely because we can’t explain it. In contrast, if we explain the phenomoenon through design, rational inquiry stops.
I don’t think this is a fair characterization of what ID seeks to do. Last night I came across a passage in Augustine’s City of God, a current reading project of mine that’s proving incredibly fruitful, that I think reinforces how belief in design spurs research rather than stalls it.
In Boox XI of City of God, Augustine discourses on the goodness of creation, and notes how even harmful things like poison are useful when “we use them well and wisely.” Then he continues:
Thus does Divine Providence teach us not to be foolish in finding fault with things but, rather, to be diligent in finding out their usefulness or, if our mind and will should fail us in the search, then to believe that there is some hidden use still to be discovered, as in so many other cases, only with great difficulty.
In other words, our belief that the universe was designed, and in particular that it was designed “good,” should compel us to investigate thoroughly how everything in creation works and how it can productively be employed. Design isn’t a conversation stopper; it’s a conversation starter.
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TravelMar.22, 2005
I was listening to the Sean Hannity show on my way into the office this afternoon. He was discussing the Florida District Court’s ruling denying the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order under the federal statute passed by Congress (the “Schiavo Act”). Hannity stated that he believed the court’s opinion did not even reference the Schiavo Act. He was hammering the federal court’s decision as symptomatic of the arrogance of the judiciary. Senator Rick Santorum came on the Hannity show and claimed the Schiavo Act required the federal court to order the reinsertion of nutrition and hydration tubes pending a full hearing on the merits. Santorum also decried the ruling as an abuse of judicial power. This seems to be the Christian Right’s theme: a National Right to Life Committee spokesman referred to the federal court’s decision as a “gross abuse of judicial power”; Christian Defense Coalition Director Pat Mahoney, quoted in a Focus on the Family article, attributed the federal court’s decision to “an arrogant and activist federal judiciary.”
Unfortunately, all of these comments about judicial activism are wrong.
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