What is Evil?

Scholars are divided, but the old idea of evil is that of privation. In other words, evil does not exist as a thing on its own but rather it is the corruption of that which is good.

All that God created is good; sin and evil corrupt these good things. Let’s think of sin this way and see it as that which threatens ever to undo us. Let’s also rejoice in the healing refuge, the mighty cross!

The Reformed Doctrine of Going With the Flow

Philosophers like Lao Tzu have taught the importance of moving with the nature of things rather than against them. Interestingly, his concept of the Tao is akin to the Greek concept of the Logos. As the apostles (and church history) demonstrate for us, believers may profit from the true conclusions of natural philosophers as they grasp at the truth of the invisible God and the principles of his creation.

But the philosophy of moving with things as they are also finds expression in the biblical doctrine of God’s loving sovereignty in our lives. If we trust him, we can embrace the people and predicaments he has put in our daily lives instead of wishing things were otherwise and trying to make them so (one of the classic blunders). So as it turns out Reformed theology is pretty zen.

What Makes What We Say True?

We may happen to be right about something when we make a guess or repeat what we’ve heard, but what we think and say is truest when we think and speak that which we know to be true. A word is true, says Augustine, when it has “sprung from things that are known.” As one of the poets has said,

No man could stop my flow

Because I know what I speak and I speak what I know.

Let’s think and speak in this way.

The Order of Saint Augustine

Augustine talks about justification and sanctification like the process of first removing a weapon which has wounded the body and then healing the wound. The order is important. The wound can never heal until the blade be removed. It is just the same with our sin. First, it must be removed by forgiveness in Christ. Only then can the injured soul begin to heal in holiness. Let’s be sure to get the order right.

Follow the Leader

Death is just another path, one we all must take.

-Gandalf

Easy to say til it stares you in the hairy eyeballs. But to that path all must go. Let us steel ourselves against the storm by placing all our hope in Christ long before our feet are placed upon that last road. For he has passed that way and lit the journey for all who wish to follow him through.

The Webs He Weaves

“Oh, the tangled webs we weave,” wrote Sir Walter Scott. The saying has passed into common use because of its striking truth. Our lies and wrongdoings tend to get us into even more trouble in the future. Every believer has learned this through painful experience.

But all the while our God is weaving his wondrous webs of providence to save us. He is always netting together his secret provisions and using the evil intensions of others (and even sometimes our own failings—plot twist!) to prepare webs to catch us when all hope is lost. Life yeets us to our doom but we find that it’s nothing but net.

Believing is Seeing

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“You’ll see it when you believe it, mate.”

-Augustine, probably

According to the Church Father St. Augustine, faith comes first. To truly understand, we must first believe. Faith is the lens which brings Truth into focus. It is the key to open the doors of knowing God. The Word happily discloses itself to those who approach it rightly—that is, with believing hearts.

Let’s give it a shot this week.

That Which Makes Songs Sing

It has apparently been the most preached book of the Bible throughout church history, and it starts like this:

The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.

So the Song which follows is the greatest of all songs. It is greater than the Song of Moses and even the Song of Moses and of the Lamb. Here is proof enough that the Song of Solomon is the Song of God’s gospel love for us.

Perhaps it also means that God’s love is the Song that every true song sings, the Music which inspires all others. Every beautiful melody is a small expression of the beauteous goodness of God. Every good story is a reflection of the true Story. (This is true whether the musician or writer knows it or not.) And thus,

Singers and dancers [and producers and story writers] alike say, “All my springs are in you.”

Letting Us Make Mistakes

A more elusive part of good leadership is allowing people to make mistakes. Blatant rebellion is one thing, but sometimes (often!) we just get things wrong. It happens. And what does the Lord Jesus, our cosmic Leader, do? He is kind and patient with us, encouraging us to move forward that we may continue to grow. As one of our own poets has said,

Your gentleness made me great.

Ultra Fulcrum

I’m reading Saint Augustine On the Trinity and along the way, he gives this nifty little perspective on God’s power and control over his creation. The Maker alone, he says, has the power

to create and to rule the creature [created things] from the innermost and highest pivotal cause of all causation.

In other words, God is so present with what he has made that he governs and directs all things with the utmost precision, as it were, by the omnipotent pivot or fulcrum of his divine wisdom and might. He has his creation easily in hand like the artist’s brush (or Apple Pencil).

Therefore, we can trust him with all the affairs of life and eternity.