divine foreknowledge

Does God know the future?

• Yes
• God knows all the possbilities, but not what will happen
• God can see the broad strokes of the future, but not individual choice
• God can see all possible outcomes and their probabilities, but not "the future"

Vote in the poll

Interesting question, isn't it? A fellow I've been getting to know through church is a philosophy professor at the university where Natasha works; I'm told he's also one of the foremost proponents of open theism in the country.

His contention is that God knows all things that are knowable; however, since the future has not yet happened, God merely knows what may happen: how we may choose to act, how things may fall out, and that the cat potentially is alive but potentially is dead also. To argue that God knows how we will choose also is to argue that our future actions can be known because they already are written, and therefore there is no free will.

I find that this squares well with a lot of Scripture, where we encounter God as a participant in history, discovering new things as history proceeds. In Genesis, he wants to see what Adam will name the animals; in Isaiah (?) he expresses surprise at them, claiming that in their wickedness they have done things that had never occurred to him they would do. Moreover, we see God changing his mind not once but several times: sparing Israel when Moses asks for clemency, extending Hezekiah's life when he already had said he would die, and turning aside from destroying Nineveh when the people repent.

God remains able to intervene in history, through miracles, through his prophets, and what else, but that doesn't mean that he has predestined the twists and turns its current takes. Prophecies of future events also fit in with this: God can intervene to make his will come about, and he also can see the steady march of humanity toward certain inevitable conclusions. Look at places of oppression, and it's not a stretch to see upheaval and rebellion, or race riots, or other such actions; look at famine, and it's not hard to see mass migrations of refugees.

The Hebrew texts in particular depict God as learning things, and even changing his chosen course of action after hearing argument from prophets or seeing how people respond to the prophets' message. And certainly the Incarnation was a new experience for him, and the gospels make no bones about it that Jesus was no Buddha -- he grew wiser as he grew older and experienced more.

I think you could make the argument that we are partners in writing history with the Almighty. As its Author, he set the stage and created the initial characters, but that doesn't mean that he knows everything that the characters will do, or how many of the subplots will play out.

I won't say that Dean's converted me to open theism, especially since we've barely talked about it. (The extent of my philosophical discussions with him have been mostly tongue-in-cheek about the nature of nonexistence, and how the nonexistence of a purely fantastical creature like a unicorn differs qualitatively from the nonexistence of a child who wasn't conceived, or from the nonexistence of the unicorn specifically mentioned in "The Once and Future King.") But I do find that open theism sits well with my understanding of God, and mostly puts a name to something I already have believed.

preventing premarital sex

Best way to prevent premarital sex among teens:

• Lower legal marriage age
• The B.F. Skinner approach -- apply painful shocks whenever they think of sex
• Abstinence-only sex education
• Strict segregation of the sexes until adulthood
• Remind kids that their parents have sex, and make it "uncool"

Vote in the poll!

Despite the silliness of the poll answers, it's still a serious question. What is the best way to prevent premarital sex among teens? STD's and unwanted pregnancies seem pretty straightforward -- safer-sex education that teaches about condoms and reliable birth control methods -- but what about getting teens to set the bar higher than losing their virginity on Prom night or when "you've met the one"? That is still a laudable goal, isn't it? I would imagine that breaking up with a sexual partner is going to carry with it a whole new dimension of heartache beyond what already comes with losing a boyfriend or girlfriend.

I have to admit, I'm a little disturbed by the comments I've read by some critics of abstinence-only education. While I can understand and even agree with comments based on the program's failure to make any difference, it seems like some people find the idea of abstinence itself to be fatally flawed and laughable.

And I find that disquieting. Do we really see "friends with benefits" as a good thing? Do we really think that serial monogamy is equal to or better than waiting until marriage and having one partner for life?

I know the abstinence option isn't an easy one to take -- it never has been, as shotgun weddings throughout history will attest -- but it can be done. I'm sure it can even be done these days, even though our society increasingly is saturated with sex. And I have to agree with my friend Rykie, who points out that it's "silly and a touch hyprocritical" to tell young adults to delay marriage until their late 20s and 30s, when their parents probably didn't wait until they had established themselves professionally before getting married.

In any event, while I'm no moralist, I do think the biblical exhortations against premarital sex are there for our good, not just to ruin our lives, or to leave us feeling hot, bothered and frustrated for years on end. And if we want to use the nature argument, it does seem contrary to nature that our culture enforces delayed maturity -- emotionally, psychologically, professionally and educationally -- when our biology is still signalling full maturity by 20 at the latest.

(As a tangent, I note with interest that societies traditionally either try to suppress female sexuality, like Islamicist cultures and some branches of Christianity; or they enthrone and worship it, as our society increasingly is doing. And yet either way, women are denigrated as objects of lust, rather than valued as human beings created in the Divine image. What's up with that?)

So the question is, what can be done that actually will encourage people to wait until marriage for sex? There's always the control option that gets a lot of push from fundamentalist groups and those who are angry at the way society has gone, but I've never felt comfortable with the notion that Christ wants to push us back into an imagined Golden Age, as much as that he wants to lead us forward into a new and real one.

What can be done? Or is it stupid even to try?

bursitis

Worst part of pre-patella bursitis:

• Having a knee swollen to the size of a grapefruit


• Spending six hours at the hospital, in one of those designer gowns


• Having a doctor jab your swollen and tender knee joint to drain fluid


• Getting highly irritated underarms from using crutches


• Wearing a leg immobilizer


• Children who complain that you cry when they sit on your affected knee


• Inability to help rebuild Temple in Jerusalem

Vote in the poll!

I've been in worse shape -- the times I had amebic dysentery, and dengue fever spring to mind -- but to tell the truth, I feel fairly rotten.

We took the girls up to Morristown National Park on Sunday to see the Revolutionary War encampments at Jocky Hollow and to see the Wick house, where Tempe Wick lived. (There's a neat story about Tempe that Evangeline recently read as part of our study on the Revolution, and she's been begging to go see the house ever since she realized that it was a real place.)

My best guess is that I put some undue stress on my right knee when I carried Evangeline up a fairly steep hill to the (presumably rebuilt) cabins used by the Pennsylvania Line soldiers. Sunday evening my knee was becoming fairly uncomfortable, and around 4 a.m. Monday, it hurt so much that it woke me up. By morningtime, it was visibly swollen, red, and warm to the touch.

I ended up going to the doctor that afternoon, and he concerned enough he sent me to the emergency room with the warning that I might be there overnight, or longer. It turns out he was concerned they might have to operate on my knee.

Luckily, and I use the term with a measure of irony, all that happened is they drained some of the fluid from the joint to perform a culture, gave me an antibiotic IV drip and left me shivering in that stupid gown for about two hours until I reminded them that I would really, really like a blanket. (It took another two hours before I got them to understand that I really, really had to pee.)

The long and short of it is that I have bursitis, and am taking Keflex to kill the infection. I've developed a slight fever, have sore spots from the crutches and my knee is in steady pain. I'm also tired all the time, which is ironic, because I don't feel "sick," if you know what I mean.

Luckily, and this time I use the term with a smaller measure of irony, my mother came up today, with plans to stay for the next week since I'm unable to drive comfortably, even if I take my knee out of the leg brace.

The worst part has been that my girls are fascinated with the leg brace and have tried to play with it and with my leg. Ruth sat on my knee twice yesterday, and Evangeline unwittingly kicked in a few times. Today, Ruth kept trying to climb all over me, so I switched sofas. She immediately complained: "No, daddy, I want to climb down your leg!"

Sigh.

Still, it's nice to know that I have friends. Because Natasha was unable to pick me up at the hospital, she asked a friend if he could, and although the hour was late, he was more than happy to do it. Tonight he called just to ask how I was feeling.

I made up a list of reasons psoriasis was a good thing to have, a while ago. Now I'm trying to come up with a similar list of reasons to have bursitis. There has to be something good about it, although it is hard to appreciate when your knee looks big and round enought to be the grapefruit on someone's breakfast table.

we are the branches

Which branch of Christianity do you belong to?

• Roman Catholic
• Orthodox
• Coptic
• Mainline Protestant
• Evangelical
• Pentecostal
• Fundamentalist
• Liberation theology
• Other
• I'm not a Christian

Vote
In terms of views of the Bible or even most major doctrines, I don't think there are substnative differences between the labels evangelical and fundamentalist. I think the difference comes in connotation.

The Associated Press notes that the term "fundamentalist" generally is considered derogatory and should not be applied to an organization or individual unless the organization or individual so referenced uses the term in that way already. My own interpretation of that term is that fundamentalist churches usually are withdrawn from society at large, which it holds in some disdain. Fundamentlist groups also are more likely to be less educated. That's the connotation I take away from the image, anyway.

Evangelicals, however, are more likely to be involved in things like politics as a means of saving the world from itself. There might be a condemnation of society but usually less so of individuals within it. In my experience, evangelical groups often are more educated, generally speaking.

Pentecostals can be of either school, but they are marked by practices such as speaking in tongues and prophecy, and it's also -- generally speaking again -- among Pentecostals that you're more like to find some of the excess that dogged the American Church in the 1980s and 1990s.

All that said of the stereotypes, it's true that you'll find goodhearted people and knuckleheads in every sect of Christianity.

2602.20 in reply to 2602.16
That's certainly the popular depiction of liberation theology in evangelical circles, but that's a pretty extreme view. Working that way, I might well classify evangelicalism as a belief system that holds that Jesus was a hard-working member of the upper-middle class who believed that people should rise or fall on their own merits, hated welfare cheats, and thought the economy would do better if only the wealthy got to keep more of their money.

Yeah, you'll find that Marxists have used liberation theology to hijack the church in some parts of Latin America, just as you'll find that some Republicans have hijacked evangelicalism to muster the votes they need to win. Neither case should be considered a fair representation of the beliefs.

As I understand it, liberation theology teaches that the poor have a special place in God's economy. When Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," he means that: The gospel has a special relevance for the poor, and that they stand to enter it ahead of the wealthy. That's why he says things like "The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor" and "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." That's why Jesus grew up in a working-class home, worked a simple trade, and spent his adult life primarily with the outcasts of society -- because the people society has rejected, have a special value to God.

Salvation remains by grace, through faith, but the epistle of James loses none of its meaning: Remember that he says that faith that produces no works in keeping with righteousness is a sterile, dead faith. And James -- like the prophets in the Tanakh -- has some incredibly stern words for those who make themselves wealthy at the expense of others. "Woe to you who are rich," he writes. "The wages you have denied the workers cry out against you. You have hoarded wealth in the last days." Many evangelicals I've known have been ignorant of those words, or view them as less inspired than Paul's words, "You have been saved by grace, through faith, not by works, lest any man should boast."

It's not just about money, although that's one indicator of inequity that's easy to latch onto. Jesus in his Parable of the Sheep and the Goats runs through a whole laundry list of things we're to do, and at the end of it, he consigns to everlasting fire and torment a group of people who ask with puzzlement, "Lord, when did we ever see you in need and not minister to you?" These aren't non-Christians being sent away; they're people who believed they were following.

In "The Grapes of Wrath," Steinbeck observed that the church often tells the poor just to sit back and fold your hands, because you'll be eating ice cream off gold plates in heaven. Phooey to that, I say. John the Baptist says, "If you have two cloaks, give one to the man who has none." Jesus told people to set aside their prejudices and care for the wounded, even if the wounded man was an individual who would just as soon throw stones at you as give you the time of day.

To me, that's what liberation theology is about. It's about recognizing that Christ is in the need, and responding to him. It's about meeting the needs of others, and it's open making real and physical connections with other people. It's about correcting social inequities and problems by helping the people caught in them.

That's liberating, and that's good theology.

best captain of the starship enterprise

Pick one:

• Jonathan Archer
  
• Robert April
  
• Christopher Pike
  
• James Kirk
  
• Will Decker
  
• Spock
  
• John Harriman
  
• Rachel Garret
  
• Jean-Luc Picard
  
• William Riker

Please vote

For those who don't know but may care:
1) Jonathan Archer: Captain of the Enterprise in "Enterprise," the latest gallon of skim milk from the cash cow.
2) Robert April: First captain of NCC-1701, appeared in Star Trek: The Animated Series.
3) Christopher Pike: Succeeded April, preceded Kirk. Appeared in "The Cage" and in "The Menagerie."
4) James Kirk: Captain of the Enterprise, NCC-1701, during its five-year mission that was canceled after three years.
5) Willard Decker: Was supposed to captain a refitted Enterprise at the start of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," but Kirk, now an admiral, pulled rank to take the Enterprise out to meet Vejur.
6) Spock: Captain of the Enterprise during its tour of duty as a training vessel, in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."
7) John Harriman: Captain of the Alaska class starship Enterprise, NCC-1701-B. He appears in "Star Trek Generations" and is notable mainly for totaling his starship on its maiden voyage. The actor had a similar role in "Ferris Bueler's Day Off."
8) Rachel Garret: Captain of the Enterprise-class (?) starship Enterprise, NCC-1701-C. Her ship was destroyed and she died repelling a Romulan attack on the Klingons. She appears, due to a temporal anomaly, in "Yesterday's Enterprise."
9) Jean-Luc Picard: Captain of the Galaxy-class starship Enterprise NCC-1701-D and its successor, NCC-1701-E.
10) William Riker: Given field promotion to captain during "The Best of Both Worlds," while Picard was assimilated by the Borg.

Due to space constraints, I was unable to include Captain Jellison, who took command of the Enterprise-D for a two-episode story in the sixth season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," or Montgomery Scott, who was promoted to the rank of captain at the beginning of "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock."

Sisko and Janeway don't count for purposes of this poll, since he was captain of a space station and she was captain of Voyager.

I don't really know much about Sisko. I saw the episode with Q, and I saw "Trials and Tribble-ations," but aside from those and one or two other shows, I never really saw that much DS9. It seemed like a nice and welcome change of pace for Star Trek when I first heard about it, setting a show on the backside of Star Fleet rather than on its flagship. I never got into the show later on because it became too invovled with the war plot and the Dominion and all.

Pike, like April, might be an interesting captain, but we really don't know much about him. What appears in "The Menagerie" is almost all from "The Cage," and I'm only aware of one Star Trek novel that deals with him further. (That would be "Vulcan's Glory," by D.C. Fontana, for those keeping track.)

My personal preference is Kirk. Unlike Picard, he didn't surrender every time he faced a hostile; he demonstrated moral restraint when he had the advantage over a fallen enemy; and also unlike Picard, he actually led the Enterprise into the unknown and explored space. True, he had more casualties, but he also was an explorer, where the potential for casualties was much greater. Kirk also wasn't a self-righteous moralist like Picard.